Explore the Family Name Kannan

The meaning of Kannan

Indian (Tamil Nadu): Vellalar (agrarian caste) name of unexplained etymology. Some characteristic forenames: Indian Ramesh, Ravi, Suresh, Hari, Kesavan, Murugan, Narasimhan, Sridhar, Sridharan, Vijay, Akila, Arun.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.

How common is the last name Kannan in the United States?

The surname Kannan had a significant increase in popularity between the years 2000 and 2010 according to the Decennial U.S. Census data. In 2000, it was ranked 30,682, but by 2010 it had jumped to rank 17,980 – a change of 41.4%. The count of people with this surname also more than doubled during this period, going from 717 in 2000 to 1,553 in 2010, which is an impressive growth of 116.6%. This leap in popularity is also reflected in the proportion per 100k figure, which nearly doubled from 0.27 in 2000 to 0.53 in 2010.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#30,682	#17,980	41.4%
Count	717	1,553	116.6%
Proportion per 100k	0.27	0.53	96.3%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Kannan

In terms of ethnic identity, the data from the Decennial U.S. Census reveals that the majority of individuals bearing the surname Kannan identify as Asian/Pacific Islander. There was a notable increase in this group over the decade, with the percentage rising from 74.34% in 2000 to 89.50% in 2010. Those identifying as White saw a significant decrease, falling from 17.99% in 2000 to 7.86% in 2010. Similarly, those claiming two or more races decreased from 5.3% to 1.48% over the same period. The percentage of Kannans identifying as Black also dropped, from 1.26% in 2000 to 0.32% in 2010. Meanwhile, new categories emerged in 2010, with 0.39% identifying as Hispanic and 0.45% as American Indian and Alaskan Native.

	2000	2010	Change
Asian/Pacific Islander	74.34%	89.5%	20.39%
White	17.99%	7.86%	-56.31%
Two or More Races	5.3%	1.48%	-72.08%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0.45%	0%
Hispanic	0%	0.39%	0%
Black	1.26%	0.32%	-74.6%