The history of your name

The KING surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 438,986 35 0.163 1,627
United States (1880 census) 106,796 27 0.214 2,136
Change since 1880 +332190 -8 -0.051 -509
Other Countries
Australia 24,870 20 0.152 1,521
United Kingdom 87,871 35 0.191 1,913
Top States for KING by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Texas 31,619 47 0.152 1,516
California 29,856 68 0.088 881
Florida 27,078 37 0.169 1,694
Ohio 20,935 24 0.184 1,844
Georgia 19,103 29 0.233 2,333
Top States for KING by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Tennessee 17,733 19 0.312 3,117
Alabama 13,472 24 0.303 3,029
Mississippi 8,225 26 0.289 2,891
Arkansas 6,773 21 0.253 2,533
South Carolina 9,576 32 0.239 2,387

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

Classification and Origin of KING

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Status Name

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

Classification Total Percent
White (Caucasian) 319,582 72.8
Black/African American 96,665 22.02
Mixed Race 7,507 1.71
White (Hispanic) 7,112 1.62
Native American/Alaskan 4,258 0.97
Asian/Pacific 3,863 0.88

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

Meaning of KING in historical publications

The primary sense is a head or leader. Gaelic, ceann; Welsh, cun and cwn, a head, a leader. Saxon, cyng, and nearly the same in all the Teutonic dialects.

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


KING. A very common sobriquet in all ages and countries. Classical antiquity affords us the names of Basilius, Archias, Regulus, Caesarius, &c., borne by people wlio, as Camden quaintlj' remarks, "were neither kings, dukes, nor Ca?sars." There are plenty of Lerois in France, and Kcenigs in Germany, who are of no royal descent, and it is only within a few generations that the ' Kings ' of England have emerged from a plebeian grade. The name may very probably have originated in those popular medieval pastimes in which Kings of the Bean — of May — of Cockneys — of Misrule held temporary sway. For their functions see Brand's Pop. Antiq. edit., 1812.

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 KING

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as KING.

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 KING

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