The BLISS surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	14,273	2324	0.005	53
United States (1880 census)	6,458	942	0.013	129
Change since 1880	+7815	-1382	-0.008	-76
Other Countries
Australia	674	2397	0.004	41
United Kingdom	2,163	2763	0.005	47

Top States for BLISS by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
California	1,387	2226	0.004	41
New York	1,237	1438	0.007	65
Michigan	887	1177	0.009	89
Florida	878	2273	0.005	55
Massachusetts	703	1239	0.011	111
Top States for BLISS by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Vermont	133	740	0.022	218
Rhode Island	154	954	0.015	147
Kansas	305	946	0.011	113
New Hampshire	138	1395	0.011	112
Massachusetts	703	1239	0.011	111

Notes

Total is the total number of people with that surname.
Rank is the position in the list of names ordered by total (eg, a rank of 1 means that it's the most common name, and a rank of 10 means it's the tenth most common, etc).
Frequency is the percentage of people with that surname.
Per million people is the number of people with that surname per million of the population.

'A figure of zero indicates that we don't have data for this name (usually because it's quite uncommon and our stats don't go down that far). It doesn't mean that there's no-one with that name at all!

For less common surnames, the figures get progressively less reliable the fewer holders of that name there are. This data is aggregated from several public lists, and some stats are interpolated from known values. The margin of error is well over 100% at the rarest end of the table!

For less common surnames, the frequency and "per million" values may be 0 even though there are people with that name. That's because they represent less than one in a million of the population, which ends up as 0 after rounding.

It's possible for a surname to gain in rank and/or total while being less common per million people (or vice versa) as there are now more surnames in the USA as a result of immigration. In mathematical terms, the tail has got longer, with a far larger number of less common surnames.

Figures for top states show firstly the states where most people called BLISS live. This obviously tends to be biased towards the most populous states. The second set of figures show where people called BLISS represent the biggest proportion of the population. So, in this case, there are more people called BLISS in California than any other state, but you are more likely to find a BLISS by picking someone at random in Vermont than anywhere else.

Classification and Origin of BLISS

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the BLISS surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the language spoken, or religion practised, by the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Data for ethnic origin relates to the region and country in which the BLISS surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the ethnicity of the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Ethnic distribution of BLISS in the USA

Classification	Total	Percent
Black/African American	248	1.74
Mixed Race	208	1.46
White (Hispanic)	208	1.46
Native American/Alaskan	124	0.87
Asian/Pacific	97	0.68
White (Caucasian)	13,387	93.79

Ethnic distribution data shows the number and percentage of people with the BLISS surname who reported their ethnic background as being in these broad categories in the most recent national census.

Meaning of BLISS in historical publications

(origin: In English) is a very happy name, imposed by others on the individual. Blys, in the Welsh, signifies desiring, longing.

Arthur, William (1857) An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman. Public Domain.

BLISS. A John Bliss occurs in the II.R. without any preiix of De or Le. The name seems to be connected with the A-Sax. verb Missian, lastificare, to make glad or joyous. The singular name Alicia Blissewenche in the H.R. appears to be nearly synonymous with that of Maud Makejoy, whose dancing afforded Edward, prince of Wales, so much pleasure in 1297. See Eug. Surn. ii. 15.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.

Similar names to BLISS

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as BLISS.

This does not necessarily imply a direct relationship between the names, but may indicate names that could be mistaken for this one when written down or misheard.