goodman

Goodman is a surname with Jewish and English usage. It is derived from given names such as Gutman or Gutmann, from Yiddish and German roots, meaning “good man.” The name has spread widely and is used in various cultures, sometimes appearing as a place name or in branding.

Notable individuals bearing the name include Benny Goodman (1909–1986), an American jazz clarinetist and bandleader widely regarded as the “King of Swing,” and Paul Goodman, an American poet, essayist, and social critic.

In business and institutions, Goodman may refer to Goodman Group, an Australian multinational property company focusing on industrial and logistics property. It also refers to Goodman Manufacturing, a brand of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning equipment now part of Daikin Industries, known for Goodman furnaces and air conditioners.

There are towns and communities named Goodman in several U.S. states, and the name appears in various place names around the world.

In statistics, Goodman and Kruskal’s gamma is a nonparametric measure of association for ordinal data, used to assess the strength and direction of relationships between variables. The surname also appears in academic and professional contexts across disciplines, reflecting its broad usage in English-speaking regions.