The BURKE surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	119,175	229	0.044	442
United States (1880 census)	27,984	184	0.056	560
Change since 1880	+91191	-45	-0.012	-118
Other Countries
Australia	7,402	171	0.045	453
United Kingdom	21,342	257	0.046	465

Top States for BURKE by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
New York	9,944	92	0.052	524
California	8,820	344	0.026	260
Massachusetts	8,266	30	0.130	1,302
Florida	8,143	188	0.051	509
Pennsylvania	6,535	124	0.053	532
Top States for BURKE by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Massachusetts	8,266	30	0.130	1,302
New Hampshire	1,224	62	0.099	990
Vermont	487	103	0.080	800
Delaware	562	165	0.072	717
Maine	889	233	0.070	697

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

Classification and Origin of BURKE

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Ireland

Language of origin: Gaelic

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

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

Classification	Total	Percent
Native American/Alaskan	584	0.49
Asian/Pacific	572	0.48
White (Caucasian)	104,564	87.74
Black/African American	10,011	8.4
Mixed Race	1,561	1.31
White (Hispanic)	1,871	1.57

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

Meaning of BURKE in historical publications

A corruption of (De) Burgo, as the name was formerly written, that is, from the fort, castle, hill, or city. This family went from Normandy into England with the Conqueror, and afterward into Ireland with Strongbow.

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

BURKE. A hardened pronunciation of Burgh, and equivalent to Borrowes, &iO. See Burgh. The great Irish family are traced to the Anglo-Norm. De Burghs, one of whom settled in Ireland soon after the acquisition of that country by the English monarchs. The name Alfric de Sure, apparently of Saxon origin, appear.s in the Domesd. of Sufiblk. In the H.K. the name of the famous Hubert de Burgh, temp. King John, is sometimes Avritteu De Burk.

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 BURKE

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as BURKE.

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.