The FOSS surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	13,737	2418	0.005	51
United States (1880 census)	4,975	1234	0.01	99
Change since 1880	+8762	-1184	-0.005	-48
Other Countries
Australia	184	8145	0.001	11
United Kingdom	721	6762	0.002	16

Top States for FOSS by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Minnesota	1,362	294	0.028	277
California	1,180	2633	0.003	35
Maine	829	259	0.065	650
Florida	743	2725	0.005	46
Washington	729	961	0.012	124
Top States for FOSS by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Maine	829	259	0.065	650
North Dakota	286	159	0.045	445
New Hampshire	377	467	0.031	305
Minnesota	1,362	294	0.028	277
South Dakota	122	612	0.016	162

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

Classification and Origin of FOSS

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 FOSS 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 FOSS 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 FOSS in the USA

Classification	Total	Percent
White (Hispanic)	172	1.25
Black/African American	168	1.22
Mixed Race	148	1.08
Native American/Alaskan	114	0.83
Asian/Pacific	70	0.51
White (Caucasian)	13,064	95.1

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

Similar names to FOSS

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as FOSS.

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.