The history of your name

The KNIGHT surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 131,860 199 0.049 489
United States (1880 census) 28,012 182 0.056 560
Change since 1880 +103848 -17 -0.007 -71
Other Countries
Australia 10,662 100 0.065 652
United Kingdom 45,383 94 0.099 988
Top States for KNIGHT by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Florida 9,721 154 0.061 608
Texas 9,140 259 0.044 438
California 8,337 383 0.025 246
Georgia 7,382 111 0.090 902
Alabama 6,182 85 0.139 1,390
Top States for KNIGHT by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Alabama 6,182 85 0.139 1,390
Mississippi 3,552 99 0.125 1,249
South Carolina 4,727 100 0.118 1,178
Maine 1,295 132 0.102 1,016
Georgia 7,382 111 0.090 902

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

Classification and Origin of KNIGHT

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 KNIGHT 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 KNIGHT 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 KNIGHT in the USA

Classification Total Percent
Native American/Alaskan 976 0.74
Asian/Pacific 527 0.4
White (Caucasian) 98,618 74.79
Black/African American 27,401 20.78
Mixed Race 2,202 1.67
White (Hispanic) 2,149 1.63

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

Meaning of KNIGHT in historical publications

A term originally applied to a young man after he was admitted to the privilege of bearing arms, by a certain ceremony of great importance called knighting, which was generally conferred by the king.

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


KNIGHT. 1. Applied, not to a person

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 KNIGHT

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as KNIGHT.

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 KNIGHT

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