The GRANT surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	134,034	192	0.05	497
United States (1880 census)	31,822	159	0.064	636
Change since 1880	+102212	-33	-0.014	-139
Other Countries
Australia	10,646	102	0.065	651
United Kingdom	40,788	107	0.089	888

Top States for GRANT by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Florida	10,414	142	0.065	652
New York	10,178	101	0.054	536
California	9,855	314	0.029	291
Texas	8,189	296	0.039	393
Georgia	6,998	118	0.085	855
Top States for GRANT by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Maine	2,721	34	0.213	2,134
South Carolina	6,455	64	0.161	1,609
Georgia	6,998	118	0.085	855
New Hampshire	1,041	94	0.084	842
Washington DC	452	106	0.079	790

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

Classification and Origin of GRANT

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Scotland

Language of origin: Gaelic

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: From given name or forename

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

Classification	Total	Percent
Asian/Pacific	550	0.41
White (Caucasian)	78,075	58.25
Black/African American	49,030	36.58
Mixed Race	2,533	1.89
White (Hispanic)	2,426	1.81
Native American/Alaskan	1,434	1.07

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

Meaning of GRANT in historical publications

On this name Playfair remarks that it may be derived from the Saxon, Irish, or French. "In the Saxon, Grant signifies crooked or bowed. Thus Cambridge, the town and University in England so called, signifies a crooked bridge, or rather a bridge upon Cam River, or the crooked and winding river. "The Saxons called this town Grant Bridge, Cam in the British, and Grant in the Saxon, being of the same signification, crooked. "So Mons Gramphius, the Grampian Hill, was called by the Saxons Granz Ben, or the crooked hill, but we can not see how from this Saxon word the surname should be borrowed. "In the old Irish, Grandha signifies ugly, ill-favored. Grande signifies dark or swarthy. Grant and Ciar signify much the same thing, or are synonymous words, and there being a tribe of the Grants called Clan Chiaran, it is the same as Clan Grant. Thus the surname might have been taken from a progenitor that was Chiar or Grant, that is to say, a swarthy or gray-headed man, and, though, in time, Grant became the common and prevailing surname, yet some always retained the other name, Chiaran, and are called Clan Chiaran. In the French Grand signifies great, brave, valorous, and from thence many are inclined to think that the surname Grant is taken from Grand, which in the Irish is sounded short, and thereby the letter d at the end of the word is changed into t, and thus Grand into Grant. The surname, it seems, was thus understood in England about five hundred years ago, for Richard Grant was made Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1229, and is, in Mr. Anderson's Genealogical Tables, as well as by others, expressly called Richard Grant. But the English historians of that time, writing in Latin, call him Richardus Magnus, which plainly shows that they took Grant to be the same with the French Grand, and the Latin Magnus. To which let us add, that in the old writs, the article the is put before the surname Grant."

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

GRANT. "Nothing certain is known regarding the origin of the Grants. They have been said to be of Danish, English, French, Norman, and of Gaelic extraction, but each of these suppositions depends for support on conjecture alone." Skene's Highlanders, ii. 254. The advocates of a Gaelic source adduce a tradition which makes them McGregors. Those wdio consider the name French, derive it h-om grand. On the first appearance of the family in Scotland, it is written "dictus Grant," afterwards "le Grant," and sometimes ridiculously "de Grant," for there was no ancient property so called. As to " le," that particle was prefixed by clerks to most Highland epithets, as well as to Norman. The name first occurs in charters in 1258. Ibid. p. 250. Other accounts of the name are given by Dixon, edit. 1S55, where we meet with the following anecdote. "A wag contrived to alter in tlie family Bible of a former laird of Grant, tlie words in Genesis, 'There were ffiants in those days,' into ' There were Grants in those days ; ' and the good old chief believed it I"

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 GRANT

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as GRANT.

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.