The history of your name

The COOPER surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 270,097 64 0.1 1,001
United States (1880 census) 59,671 60 0.119 1,193
Change since 1880 +210426 -4 -0.019 -192
Other Countries
Australia 19,862 43 0.122 1,215
United Kingdom 94,703 32 0.206 2,062
Top States for COOPER by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Texas 19,771 97 0.095 948
California 19,401 128 0.057 573
Florida 16,954 70 0.106 1,061
Ohio 13,025 53 0.115 1,147
Georgia 11,819 53 0.144 1,444
Top States for COOPER by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
South Carolina 8,497 42 0.212 2,118
Tennessee 10,024 51 0.176 1,762
Delaware 1,365 47 0.174 1,742
Mississippi 4,789 56 0.168 1,684
Alabama 7,461 60 0.168 1,678

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

Classification and Origin of COOPER

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Occupational Name

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

Classification Total Percent
White (Caucasian) 190,040 70.36
Black/African American 68,227 25.26
Mixed Race 4,565 1.69
White (Hispanic) 4,159 1.54
Native American/Alaskan 2,053 0.76
Asian/Pacific 1,080 0.4

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

Meaning of COOPER in historical publications

A name of occupation or trade. The name is also local, from Cupar, a town in Fifeshire, Scotland, which is derived from Cu-pyre, the inclosed fire, or Co, high, a beacon fire, or signal on the coast for ships. Pyre, a beacon fire, on a high place, is the origin of the word pier, a wharf or landing-place for ships; Danish, pyr and fyr, a lantern; ??, Greek, a fire; the whole landing-place in time was called the pier.

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


COOPER. The occupation — a maker of barrels, tubs, &c. ; originally from coop, to keep or contain anything, whether wine in a cask, or a hen in her prison. A-Sax. Itepan, ccpan. See Cowper. Le Coupere, Couimre, Cuparius, &c., H.R.

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 COOPER

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as COOPER.

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 COOPER

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