The history of your name

The BRUCE surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 52,004 583 0.019 193
United States (1880 census) 13,182 450 0.026 264
Change since 1880 +38822 -133 -0.007 -71
Other Countries
Australia 4,460 329 0.027 273
United Kingdom 17,216 325 0.037 375
Top States for BRUCE by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
California 3,835 837 0.011 113
Texas 3,549 721 0.017 170
Florida 3,076 639 0.019 192
Georgia 2,876 336 0.035 351
New York 2,168 790 0.011 114
Top States for BRUCE by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Vermont 224 383 0.037 368
South Carolina 1,417 442 0.035 353
Georgia 2,876 336 0.035 351
Louisiana 1,516 405 0.034 339
Tennessee 1,808 477 0.032 318

Notes

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

Classification and Origin of BRUCE

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Scotland

Language of origin: Gaelic

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: From given name or forename

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the BRUCE 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 BRUCE 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 BRUCE in the USA

Classification Total Percent
White (Hispanic) 972 1.87
Mixed Race 900 1.73
Native American/Alaskan 530 1.02
Asian/Pacific 276 0.53
White (Caucasian) 41,525 79.85
Black/African American 7,795 14.99

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

Meaning of BRUCE in historical publications

(origin: Nor. Fr. Local) De Bruys; from Bruy or Bruys, a place in Normandy where the family originated. De Bruys was one of the followers of William the Conqueror, and fought at the battle of Hastings. From this ancestor, King Robert Bruce was descended.

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


BRUCE. I always conjectured that the Bruces of Scotland were of a common stock with the great baronial house of Braose of Bramber, in Sussex, Gower, in AVales, &c. A passage in Drummond's British Families seems conclusiveon this point: — "Nathaniel Johnstone, M.D., wrote a history of the family of Bruce ; he affirms the identitj' of the Bruces and Braoses. The assertion is supported by many probaliilities.

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 BRUCE

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as BRUCE.

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.

Matches are generated automatically by a combination of Soundex, Metaphone and Levenshtein matching.

Potential typos for BRUCE

The following words are slight variants of BRUCE that are likely to be possible typos or misspellings in written material.