The history of your name

The DAWSON surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 80,190 355 0.03 297
United States (1880 census) 19,034 280 0.038 381
Change since 1880 +61156 -75 -0.008 -84
Other Countries
Australia 8,892 130 0.054 544
United Kingdom 36,530 127 0.08 795
Top States for DAWSON by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
California 6,175 514 0.018 182
Texas 5,881 423 0.028 282
Florida 4,927 364 0.031 308
Ohio 4,793 233 0.042 422
Virginia 3,318 243 0.047 469
Top States for DAWSON by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
West Virginia 1,272 172 0.070 703
Alabama 2,346 293 0.053 528
Delaware 398 274 0.051 508
Virginia 3,318 243 0.047 469
Ohio 4,793 233 0.042 422

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

Classification and Origin of DAWSON

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: From name of parent

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

Classification Total Percent
Native American/Alaskan 409 0.51
Asian/Pacific 385 0.48
White (Caucasian) 56,518 70.48
Black/African American 20,224 25.22
Mixed Race 1,379 1.72
White (Hispanic) 1,275 1.59

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

Meaning of DAWSON in historical publications

Said to be a corruption of the Nor. Fr. D'Ossone, from the town of Ossone, in Normandy. Camden, however, thinks it a contraction of Davison, the son of David, which is the more probable derivation.

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


DAWSON. See David. The late earl of Portarlington averred tliat it ought to be D'Ossoune 1 Arthur says there is a town in Normandy called Ossone, hut the Itin. Norm, does not give 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 DAWSON

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as DAWSON.

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 DAWSON

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