The history of your name

The HUGHES surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 229,390 83 0.085 850
United States (1880 census) 46,325 88 0.093 926
Change since 1880 +183065 +5 -0.008 -76
Other Countries
Australia 17,053 55 0.104 1,043
United Kingdom 117,215 17 0.255 2,552
Top States for HUGHES by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Texas 16,418 115 0.079 787
California 15,466 168 0.046 457
Florida 12,910 97 0.081 808
Ohio 11,499 61 0.101 1,013
Pennsylvania 10,655 56 0.087 868
Top States for HUGHES by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Alabama 7,239 63 0.163 1,628
South Carolina 6,287 66 0.157 1,567
Mississippi 4,454 64 0.157 1,566
Tennessee 8,664 61 0.152 1,523
Kentucky 5,228 65 0.129 1,293

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

Classification and Origin of HUGHES

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Wales

Language of origin: Welsh

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: From name of parent

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

Classification Total Percent
Asian/Pacific 895 0.39
White (Caucasian) 184,888 80.6
Black/African American 35,441 15.45
Mixed Race 3,349 1.46
White (Hispanic) 3,624 1.58
Native American/Alaskan 1,193 0.52

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

Meaning of HUGHES in historical publications

The son of Hugh. Aventinus derives Hugh from Hougen, that is, slasher or cutter. Alfred, in the year 900, used Hugh to denote comfort. Hugh in the Gaelic, is Aoidh, which signifies affability, a guest, a stranger. Hu suggests the idea of elevation; Ho, Hu, highness.

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


HUGHES. From Hugh, the personal name. See Hugo. HUGHMAN. See Human. HUGHSON. The sou of Hugh. HUGO. The A.-Norm. Christian name, whence Huggins, Higgins, Huggett, &c. It is very common in Domesday. See Hugh.

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 HUGHES

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as HUGHES.

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 HUGHES

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