The LESLIE surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	24,266	1335	0.009	90
United States (1880 census)	4,957	1247	0.01	99
Change since 1880	+19309	-88	-0.001	-9
Other Countries
Australia	2,463	651	0.015	151
United Kingdom	6,712	936	0.015	146

Top States for LESLIE by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
California	2,133	1573	0.006	63
Florida	1,732	1210	0.011	108
Texas	1,212	2019	0.006	58
Michigan	1,158	920	0.012	117
New York	1,141	1622	0.006	60
Top States for LESLIE by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Alabama	744	1014	0.017	167
Indiana	889	829	0.015	146
Oregon	453	895	0.013	132
Alaska	79	1006	0.013	126
Kentucky	509	1159	0.013	126

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

Classification and Origin of LESLIE

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 LESLIE 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 LESLIE 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 LESLIE in the USA

Classification	Total	Percent
Mixed Race	524	2.16
White (Hispanic)	454	1.87
Native American/Alaskan	279	1.15
Asian/Pacific	211	0.87
White (Caucasian)	18,428	75.94
Black/African American	4,370	18.01

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

Meaning of LESLIE in historical publications

This family, according to tradition, descended from Bartholomew de Leslyn, a noble Hungarian, who came to Scotland with Queen Margaret, about the year 1067. He was the son of Walter de Leslyn, who had assumed this surname from the castle of Leslyn, in Hungary, where he was born. Bartholomew being in great favor with Malcom Canmore, obtained from that prince grants of several lands in Aberdeenshire, which it is said he called Leslyn, after his own surname. Malcom de Leslyn, who succeeded him, was the progenitor of all the Leslies in Scotland. Robert Verstegan, in his Antiquities, remarks on the word ley: "A combat having taken place in Scotland between a noble of the family of Leslie and a foreign knight, in which the Scot was victorious, the following lines in memory of the deed, and the place where it happened, are still extant: "Between the Less-Ley and the Mair, He slew the knight and left him there." The name may be derived from Lesslo, a maritime territory in Denmark.

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

LESLIE. "The family ofLeslie, to which belong two Scottish peerages, trace their origin to Bartholomew, a Flemish chief, who settled with liis followers in the district of Garioch, in Aberdeensliire, in the reign of AVilliam the Lion. He took the 2 c

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 LESLIE

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as LESLIE.

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.