The history of your name

The HELM surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 16,700 1991 0.006 62
United States (1880 census) 4,042 1529 0.008 81
Change since 1880 +12658 -462 -0.002 -19
Other Countries
Australia 305 5132 0.002 19
United Kingdom 1,745 3296 0.004 38
Top States for HELM by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Texas 1,299 1858 0.006 62
California 1,285 2449 0.004 38
Pennsylvania 1,155 1219 0.009 94
Kentucky 932 646 0.023 231
Illinois 915 1361 0.007 74
Top States for HELM by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
North Dakota 264 185 0.041 411
Kentucky 932 646 0.023 231
Missouri 858 768 0.015 153
Kansas 374 740 0.014 139
Wyoming 65 857 0.013 132

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

Classification and Origin of HELM

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 HELM 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 HELM 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 HELM in the USA

Classification Total Percent
Mixed Race 249 1.49
White (Hispanic) 204 1.22
Asian/Pacific 109 0.65
Native American/Alaskan 68 0.41
White (Caucasian) 14,930 89.4
Black/African American 1,141 6.83

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

Meaning of HELM in historical publications

HELM. HELME. Teutonic, a helmet ; a name borrowed from military associations. " Helm as a termination entered into a gi-eat number of regular Anglo-Saxon names, such as Eadhelra, Brighthelm, Alfhelm, &c. Wilhelm (William) is an earlier name, occurring in the genealogy of the East- Anglian kings from Woden." — Ferguson.

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 HELM

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as HELM.

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 HELM

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