The PETERSON surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	275,041	63	0.102	1,020
United States (1880 census)	49,055	78	0.098	981
Change since 1880	+225986	+15	+0.004	+39
Other Countries
Australia	4,002	373	0.024	245
United Kingdom	2,663	2326	0.006	58

Top States for PETERSON by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Minnesota	29,723	5	0.604	6,042
California	23,499	89	0.069	694
Wisconsin	17,648	7	0.329	3,290
Illinois	13,435	45	0.108	1,082
Washington	13,389	15	0.227	2,272
Top States for PETERSON by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Minnesota	29,723	5	0.604	6,042
North Dakota	2,786	6	0.434	4,338
Utah	9,052	9	0.405	4,053
South Dakota	3,025	7	0.401	4,007
Wisconsin	17,648	7	0.329	3,290

Notes

Total is the total number of people with that surname.
Rank is the position in the list of names ordered by total (eg, a rank of 1 means that it's the most common name, and a rank of 10 means it's the tenth most common, etc).
Frequency is the percentage of people with that surname.
Per million people is the number of people with that surname per million of the population.

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

Classification and Origin of PETERSON

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Scotland

Language of origin: Gaelic

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: From given name or forename

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

Classification	Total	Percent
White (Caucasian)	237,333	86.29
Black/African American	26,349	9.58
White (Hispanic)	4,291	1.56
Mixed Race	3,658	1.33
Asian/Pacific	1,430	0.52
Native American/Alaskan	1,925	0.7

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

Similar names to PETERSON

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as PETERSON.

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.