The BALFOUR surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	2,100	13311	0.001	8
United States (1880 census)	364	12350	0.001	7
Change since 1880	+1736	-961	0	+1
Other Countries
Australia	539	2998	0.003	33
United Kingdom	2,347	2573	0.005	51

Top States for BALFOUR by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
California	237	10481	0.001	7
Florida	182	9793	0.001	11
New York	158	11549	0.001	8
Texas	145	11278	0.001	7
Michigan	88	13654	0.001	9
Top States for BALFOUR by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
North Dakota	16	6821	0.002	25
Maine	31	5093	0.002	24
Connecticut	66	6645	0.002	19
Rhode Island	20	7164	0.002	19
Nebraska	32	8035	0.002	19

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

Classification and Origin of BALFOUR

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Scotland

Language of origin: Gaelic

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

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

Classification	Total	Percent
Black/African American	561	26.71
White (Hispanic)	61	2.9
Mixed Race	32	1.52
Asian/Pacific	13	0.62
Native American/Alaskan	9	0.43
White (Caucasian)	1,424	67.81

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

Meaning of BALFOUR in historical publications

(origin: Local) From the barony and castle of Balfour, near the confluence of the rivers Or and Leven. (Scot.) Ball and Balla, in Gaelic, signifies a casting up, raising, like the Greek B??, and denotes a wall, fortress, house, a village. Balfour, i. e., the Keep, or castle on the river Or. Balfoir, the castle of deliverance or security.

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

BALFOUR. A castle and fief in Fifeshire of which county the chiefs were hereditary sheriffs. The family sprang from Siward, a Northumld-ian, who settled in Scotland temp. Duncan I.

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 BALFOUR

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as BALFOUR.

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.