The SHERWOOD surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	20,998	1567	0.008	78
United States (1880 census)	8,257	730	0.017	165
Change since 1880	+12741	-837	-0.009	-87
Other Countries
Australia	1,137	1446	0.007	70
United Kingdom	5,845	1076	0.013	127

Top States for SHERWOOD by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
California	1,971	1639	0.006	58
New York	1,910	889	0.010	101
Michigan	1,320	767	0.013	133
Florida	1,166	1734	0.007	73
Texas	1,101	2141	0.005	53
Top States for SHERWOOD by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Maine	221	1132	0.017	173
Alaska	99	772	0.016	158
Oregon	516	736	0.015	151
Washington	836	826	0.014	142
Arizona	709	835	0.014	138

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

Classification and Origin of SHERWOOD

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Location or Geographical Feature

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

Classification	Total	Percent
Black/African American	548	2.61
White (Hispanic)	468	2.23
Mixed Race	277	1.32
Native American/Alaskan	191	0.91
Asian/Pacific	132	0.63
White (Caucasian)	19,379	92.29

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

Meaning of SHERWOOD in historical publications

From the Saxon sher (scir), clear, and wood, a clearing in the wood, or the cleared woods; or as Bailey gives the word, "Sheer-wood, in Nottinghamshire." It may be derived from shire, (Sax.) scire, (Ger.) schier, to divide, a portion or division of land; of which divisions there are forty in England, twelve in Wales, and twenty-four in Scotland.

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

SHERWOOD. A well-known forest in Nottinghamshire, the scene of the adventures of Robin Hood and his companions.

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 SHERWOOD

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as SHERWOOD.

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.