The history of your name

The DURHAM surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 42,365 740 0.016 157
United States (1880 census) 8,255 731 0.017 165
Change since 1880 +34110 -9 -0.001 -8
Other Countries
Australia 675 2396 0.004 41
United Kingdom 3,596 1743 0.008 78
Top States for DURHAM by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Texas 4,104 632 0.020 197
North Carolina 2,911 388 0.036 362
Georgia 2,693 379 0.033 329
Tennessee 2,370 368 0.042 417
California 2,298 1477 0.007 68
Top States for DURHAM by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
South Carolina 2,267 251 0.057 565
Kentucky 2,065 276 0.051 511
Tennessee 2,370 368 0.042 417
Delaware 296 419 0.038 378
North Carolina 2,911 388 0.036 362

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

Classification and Origin of DURHAM

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Location or Geographical Feature

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

Classification Total Percent
Mixed Race 652 1.54
White (Hispanic) 555 1.31
Native American/Alaskan 254 0.6
Asian/Pacific 136 0.32
White (Caucasian) 31,986 75.5
Black/African American 8,787 20.74

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

Meaning of DURHAM in historical publications

(origin: Local) According to Bailey, this word is derived from the Saxon Dun and holm, a town in a wood. It seems rather to come from the British Dour, water, and holm, land surrounded mostly by water. It may be derived from Doire, which, in the British and Celtic, signifies a woody place, abounding in oaks; hence Doireholm or Dourham, that is, the place or town surrounded by woods.

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


Similar names to DURHAM

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as DURHAM.

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 DURHAM

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