The DUDLEY surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	34,770	912	0.013	129
United States (1880 census)	10,516	566	0.021	210
Change since 1880	+24254	-346	-0.008	-81
Other Countries
Australia	1,120	1478	0.007	69
United Kingdom	6,596	964	0.014	144

Top States for DUDLEY by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Texas	2,870	952	0.014	138
Virginia	2,416	347	0.034	341
California	2,249	1545	0.007	66
Florida	2,136	999	0.013	134
North Carolina	1,858	659	0.023	231
Top States for DUDLEY by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Maine	484	519	0.038	380
Vermont	228	395	0.037	374
Virginia	2,416	347	0.034	341
Alabama	1,332	594	0.030	300
New Hampshire	294	677	0.024	238

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

Classification and Origin of DUDLEY

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 DUDLEY 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 DUDLEY 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 DUDLEY in the USA

Classification	Total	Percent
Mixed Race	588	1.69
White (Hispanic)	553	1.59
Native American/Alaskan	226	0.65
Asian/Pacific	139	0.4
White (Caucasian)	23,880	68.68
Black/African American	9,384	26.99

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

Meaning of DUDLEY in historical publications

(origin: Local) A town in Worcestershire, England, so called from the old English Dode-ley, the place of the dead, a burying-ground. Dodelig, in the Danish, signifies pale, death-like, mortal; so also the Dutch Doodelijk, and German Todlich. Duv-da-lethe, in the Gaelic and Celtic, which has been corrupted to Dudley, has the same signification.

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

DUDLEY. A town and castle in co. Worcester. In Norman times it was the fief of the De Someries, whose descendants wei'e barons by tenure, though, as Sir H. Nicolas observes, it is questionable whether their title Avas that of " Dudley." So far as I see, no noble family called Dudley Avas ever possessor of that barony. * Dudley, one of the notorious extortioners of Henry VII., claimed to be a descendant of the Suttons, barons Dudley, and his father is said to have assumed the name of Dudley, though a more probable account makes him a travelling carpenter. Mouasticon, v. 5.

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 DUDLEY

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as DUDLEY.

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.