The history of your name

The NAN surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 450 44895 0 2
United States (1880 census) 116 28440 0 2
Change since 1880 +334 -16455 +N/A 0
Other Countries
Australia 21 50543 0 1
United Kingdom 0 0
Top States for NAN by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
California 130 15616 0.000 4
New York 71 21552 0.000 4
Pennsylvania 24 46032 0.000 2
Illinois 18 56057 0.000 1
Kentucky 18 12849 0.000 4
Top States for NAN by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Kentucky 18 12849 0.000 4
California 130 15616 0.000 4
New York 71 21552 0.000 4
Colorado 12 35245 0.000 3
Maryland 14 28148 0.000 3

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

Classification and Origin of NAN

Region of origin: Asia

Country of origin: China

Language of origin: Chinese

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the NAN 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.

Ethnic distribution of NAN in the USA

Classification Total Percent
Asian/Pacific 251 55.78
White (Caucasian) 158 35.11
White (Hispanic) 20 4.44
Mixed Race 12 2.67
Black/African American Less than 100 Insignificant
Native American/Alaskan Less than 100 Insignificant

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

Meaning of NAN in historical publications

NAN. In the Celtic of Cornwall, Nan signifies a valley, and is found in composition with many local names which have become surnames in that peninsula, as Nancothan, Nancarrow, Nance, Nanfan, Nankivell, Nausperian, Nanphant, Nanscorus, Nanscuke, Nansladron, Nanstalon, Nants, Nauscowan, Nangarthiau, Naukevil, Nanscawen.

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 NAN

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as NAN.

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 NAN

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