Explore the Family Name Kohen

The meaning of Kohen

Jewish (Ashkenazic): variant of Cohen. Some characteristic forenames: Jewish Yehuda, Amnon, Ari, Bruria, Chiam, Izhak, Meier, Moche, Mordechai, Moshe, Ofer.

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

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

The surname Kohen has been growing in popularity in the U.S. over the last decade, as evidenced by data from the Decennial U.S. Census. In the year 2000, Kohen ranked 33,169th in terms of most common surnames in the country, but by 2010, it had risen to 31,211th – an increase of 5.9%. The actual count of people with this last name also saw a significant jump during this period, rising from 650 to 743, which is a 14.31% increase. This boosted the proportion of individuals named Kohen per 100,000 people marginally from 0.24 to 0.25.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#33,169	#31,211	5.9%
Count	650	743	14.31%
Proportion per 100k	0.24	0.25	4.17%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Kohen

When it comes to the ethnicity of those bearing the surname Kohen, the Decennial U.S. Census data reveals interesting patterns. For the majority, their ethnic identity is White, with this group increasing slightly from 91.54% in 2000 to 93.14% in 2010. Those identifying as Hispanic also saw growth of 58.54%, moving from 2.46% to 3.90% over the decade. There was a new appearance in 2010 of Asians/Pacific Islanders holding the Kohen surname, making up 0.81% of the total. On the other hand, those who identify with two or more races decreased quite significantly by 54.70% and those identifying as Black dropped entirely from the data between 2000 and 2010. There were no recorded instances of American Indian and Alaskan Natives with the Kohen surname in either census year.

	2000	2010	Change
White	91.54%	93.14%	1.75%
Hispanic	2.46%	3.9%	58.54%
Two or More Races	4.15%	1.88%	-54.7%
Asian/Pacific Islander	0%	0.81%	0%
Black	1.69%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%