The FELL surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	5,833	5481	0.002	22
United States (1880 census)	2,168	2783	0.004	43
Change since 1880	+3665	-2698	-0.002	-21
Other Countries
Australia	659	2455	0.004	40
United Kingdom	4,407	1424	0.01	96

Top States for FELL by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Pennsylvania	446	3489	0.004	36
California	412	6847	0.001	12
Florida	382	5309	0.002	24
New York	355	5613	0.002	19
Illinois	301	4433	0.002	24
Top States for FELL by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Alabama	264	2501	0.006	59
Wisconsin	294	2482	0.005	55
Delaware	41	3368	0.005	52
Alaska	26	3573	0.004	41
North Dakota	25	4689	0.004	39

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

Classification and Origin of FELL

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 FELL 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 FELL 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 FELL in the USA

Classification	Total	Percent
Black/African American	240	4.11
White (Hispanic)	84	1.44
Mixed Race	57	0.98
Asian/Pacific	29	0.5
Native American/Alaskan	19	0.33
White (Caucasian)	5,404	92.65

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

Meaning of FELL in historical publications

Fel, in the Dutch, signifies fierce, furious, violent; also local, a rocky place, barren and stony hills; any uninclosed place; a moor, a valley. A short time since, a tradesman named James Fell migrated from Ludgate Hill to Fleetstreet, and announced the event in the following manner: "L Fell, from Ludgate Hill;" under which a wag wrote, "Oh what a fall was there, my countryman!"--Lower.

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

FELL. FELLS. ''Bij frith and hy fell;' a common medievalism ; equivalent to the classical "jjer mlvam, jier campum." "Also there is difference between the fryth and thefel; the fels are understood tlie mountains, vallyes, and pastures, with corn and such like ; open ground the frytlies betoken the springs and coppyses" woodlands. — Noble x\.rt of Ycuerie, quoted by Haniw.

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 FELL

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as FELL.

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.