The history of your name

The FERGUS surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 1,837 14813 0.001 7
United States (1880 census) 296 14441 0.001 6
Change since 1880 +1541 -372 0 +1
Other Countries
Australia 238 6457 0.001 15
United Kingdom 913 5647 0.002 20
Top States for FERGUS by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Illinois 204 6723 0.002 16
Ohio 148 9465 0.001 13
California 140 17883 0.000 4
New York 135 14639 0.001 7
Florida 98 18186 0.001 6
Top States for FERGUS by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Oregon 74 6118 0.002 22
Illinois 204 6723 0.002 16
Alaska 10 10916 0.002 16
Ohio 148 9465 0.001 13
Utah 29 7726 0.001 13

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

Classification and Origin of FERGUS

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Scotland

Language of origin: Gaelic

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

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

Classification Total Percent
Black/African American 248 13.5
White (Hispanic) 38 2.07
Mixed Race 21 1.14
White (Caucasian) 1,512 82.31
Asian/Pacific Less than 100 Insignificant
Native American/Alaskan Less than 100 Insignificant

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

Meaning of FERGUS in historical publications

(origin: Gaelic and Celtic.) A fierce or brave chieftain, from Fear, man, and guth, a voice or word, that is, the man of the word, a commander of an army. Some suppose the first Fergus was so named from Fairghe, the sea, on account of his large navy; others, from his raging like the sea in battle. Feargach, fiery.

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


FERGUS. FEARGUS. A Scottish saint (whence St. Fergus in Aberdeenshire) — Gaelic etymologists deduce the name from fear, a man, and cas, hardiness — energy — a man of hardj'', energetic character.

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 FERGUS

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as FERGUS.

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 FERGUS

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