The history of your name

The DOWN surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 1,204 20484 0 4
United States (1880 census) 608 8251 0.001 12
Change since 1880 +596 -12233 +N/A -8
Other Countries
Australia 763 2128 0.005 47
United Kingdom 3,802 1636 0.008 83
Top States for DOWN by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
California 151 14643 0.000 4
Michigan 115 9815 0.001 12
Illinois 72 16483 0.001 6
Oregon 68 5725 0.002 20
Florida 67 22030 0.000 4
Top States for DOWN by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Oregon 68 5725 0.002 20
Montana 15 8818 0.002 17
Nebraska 24 10064 0.001 14
Rhode Island 13 10284 0.001 12
Michigan 115 9815 0.001 12

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

Classification and Origin of DOWN

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Location or Geographical Feature

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

Classification Total Percent
Black/African American 46 3.82
Mixed Race 36 2.99
Asian/Pacific 22 1.83
White (Hispanic) 17 1.41
Native American/Alaskan 9 0.75
White (Caucasian) 1,074 89.2

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

Meaning of DOWN in historical publications

DOWNE. DOWN. A-Sax. dm, a hill, as the South Downs, Marlborough Downs, &c. From residence in such a locality have come the surnames Downe, Downer, Downman, Downes, &c. The H.R. form is Ate-Dune, i.e. ' At the Down.'

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 DOWN

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as DOWN.

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 DOWN

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