White is a surname either of English[1] or of Scottish and Irish origin, the latter being an anglicisation of the Scottish Gaelic MacGillebhàin, "Son of the fair gillie" and the Irish "Mac Faoitigh" or "de Faoite".[2][3][4] It is the seventeenth most common surname in England.[5] In the 1990 United States Census, "White" ranked fourteenth among all reported surnames in frequency, accounting for 0.28% of the population.[6] By 2000, White had fallen to position 20 in the United States[7] and 22nd position by 2014[5]
Notable people with the surname include: