The history of your name

The WALKER surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 501,307 28 0.186 1,858
United States (1880 census) 118,469 23 0.237 2,369
Change since 1880 +382838 -5 -0.051 -511
Other Countries
Australia 26,688 14 0.163 1,633
United Kingdom 128,048 12 0.279 2,788
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.

Classification and Origin of WALKER

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Occupational Name

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

Classification Total Percent
White (Caucasian) 307,051 61.25
Black/African American 171,297 34.17
Mixed Race 9,024 1.8
White (Hispanic) 8,021 1.6
Native American/Alaskan 4,161 0.83
Asian/Pacific 1,755 0.35

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

Meaning of WALKER in historical publications

In the north of England and south of Scotland a fulling-mill is still called a walk-mill. This name may signify either a fuller or an officer whose duty consisted in walking or inspecting a certain space of forest ground.

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


WALKER. 1. ASax. wealcere, a fuller. In the N. of England, fullers' earth is called " walker's clay," and a fulling-mill a "walk-mill." In Scotland, to walk, or wauk, still means to full cloth. 2. A forest ofiScer appointed to ovalk about a certain space of ground committed to his care. Nelson's Laws of Game. This ranks among numerous surnames, there being about 250 traders in London who bear it.

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 WALKER

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as WALKER.

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 WALKER

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