The GARDINER surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	10,886	3050	0.004	40
United States (1880 census)	4,265	1450	0.009	85
Change since 1880	+6621	-1600	-0.005	-45
Other Countries
Australia	5,190	268	0.032	317
United Kingdom	14,516	407	0.032	316

Top States for GARDINER by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
California	1,013	3023	0.003	30
New York	779	2362	0.004	41
Florida	706	2857	0.004	44
Texas	589	3746	0.003	28
Massachusetts	512	1735	0.008	81
Top States for GARDINER by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Rhode Island	393	262	0.037	375
Utah	466	586	0.021	209
Maine	261	955	0.020	205
Maryland	480	1246	0.009	91
Massachusetts	512	1735	0.008	81

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

Classification and Origin of GARDINER

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Occupational Name

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

Classification	Total	Percent
Black/African American	861	7.91
White (Hispanic)	184	1.69
Mixed Race	163	1.5
Native American/Alaskan	51	0.47
Asian/Pacific	49	0.45
White (Caucasian)	9,578	87.98

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

Meaning of GARDINER in historical publications

This name may be derived from the same roots as Gairden. It is probably, however, the same as Gardener, the orthography having been changed. Camden says, "Wise was the man that told my Lord Bishop (Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester) that his name was not Gardener as the English pronounce it, but Gardiner, with the French accent, and therefore a gentleman." The principal family of the Gardiners in this country derive their descent from Lion Gardiner, a native of Scotland, who served under General Fairfax in the Low Countries as an engineer. He was sent to this country in 1635, by Lords Say and Sele, Brooke, and others, to build a fort, and make a settlement on their grant at the mouth of the Connecticut river. He built the fort at Saybrook, which name he gave to it after the names of his patrons Lords Say and Brooke. His eldest son, David, born at Fort Saybrook, in 1636, was the first white child born in Connecticut. He afterward bought from the Indians the island in Long Island Sound, called by them Monchonack, and by the English the Isle of Wight, paying for it, as the old records say, a black dog, a gun, and some Dutch blankets. He removed there with his family, and gave it the name of Gardiner's Island. The island still remains in the possession of the family, having descended in a direct line from Lion Gardiner.

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

GARDINER. See Gardener.

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 GARDINER

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as GARDINER.

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.