The history of your name

The BLISS surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 14,273 2324 0.005 53
United States (1880 census) 6,458 942 0.013 129
Change since 1880 +7815 -1382 -0.008 -76
Other Countries
Australia 674 2397 0.004 41
United Kingdom 2,163 2763 0.005 47
Top States for BLISS by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
California 1,387 2226 0.004 41
New York 1,237 1438 0.007 65
Michigan 887 1177 0.009 89
Florida 878 2273 0.005 55
Massachusetts 703 1239 0.011 111
Top States for BLISS by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Vermont 133 740 0.022 218
Rhode Island 154 954 0.015 147
Kansas 305 946 0.011 113
New Hampshire 138 1395 0.011 112
Massachusetts 703 1239 0.011 111

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

Classification and Origin of BLISS

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

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

Classification Total Percent
Black/African American 248 1.74
Mixed Race 208 1.46
White (Hispanic) 208 1.46
Native American/Alaskan 124 0.87
Asian/Pacific 97 0.68
White (Caucasian) 13,387 93.79

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

Meaning of BLISS in historical publications

(origin: In English) is a very happy name, imposed by others on the individual. Blys, in the Welsh, signifies desiring, longing.

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


BLISS. A John Bliss occurs in the II.R. without any preiix of De or Le. The name seems to be connected with the A-Sax. verb Missian, lastificare, to make glad or joyous. The singular name Alicia Blissewenche in the H.R. appears to be nearly synonymous with that of Maud Makejoy, whose dancing afforded Edward, prince of Wales, so much pleasure in 1297. See Eug. Surn. ii. 15.

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 BLISS

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as BLISS.

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 BLISS

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