The history of your name

The HEAD surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 27,218 1180 0.01 101
United States (1880 census) 6,837 883 0.014 137
Change since 1880 +20381 -297 -0.004 -36
Other Countries
Australia 1,871 875 0.011 114
United Kingdom 8,034 760 0.017 175
Top States for HEAD by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Georgia 3,300 295 0.040 403
Texas 2,543 1035 0.012 122
Florida 1,570 1354 0.010 98
California 1,531 2121 0.005 45
Tennessee 1,403 640 0.025 247
Top States for HEAD by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Georgia 3,300 295 0.040 403
Alabama 1,244 623 0.028 280
Kentucky 1,040 595 0.026 257
Tennessee 1,403 640 0.025 247
Arkansas 592 606 0.022 221

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

Classification and Origin of HEAD

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 HEAD 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 HEAD 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 HEAD in the USA

Classification Total Percent
Mixed Race 365 1.34
White (Hispanic) 351 1.29
Native American/Alaskan 261 0.96
Asian/Pacific 95 0.35
White (Caucasian) 21,864 80.33
Black/African American 4,279 15.72

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

Meaning of HEAD in historical publications

e° HEAD. A component syllable of many surnames derived from places, as Headford, Heading, Headland, Headley &c. See next article. HEAD. A promontory or foreland, as Beachy Head, Spurn Head. Also the source of a river. Head or Hed, was a baptismal name in Scotland, in the XII. century. Hedde, without prefix, is found in H.E., as is also the A-Sax. form Heved.

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


Anciently written Hede or Hide. Probably from the place written Hede or Hide in Doomsday Book, now Hithe, in Kent, England, where the earliest traces of the Head family are found. From the Anglo-Saxon Hithe, a harbor, a shelter for boats.

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


Similar names to HEAD

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as HEAD.

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 HEAD

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