The history of your name

The O' NEILL surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 48,656 633 0.018 180
United States (1880 census) 1,511 3812 0.003 30
Change since 1880 +47145 +3179 +0.015 +150
Other Countries
Australia 181 8274 0.001 11
United Kingdom 2,680 2317 0.006 58
Top States for O' NEILL by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
New York 5,184 271 0.027 273
California 4,275 713 0.013 126
Pennsylvania 4,140 242 0.034 337
New Jersey 3,437 158 0.041 408
Massachusetts 3,335 186 0.053 525
Top States for O' NEILL by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Delaware 459 210 0.059 586
Massachusetts 3,335 186 0.053 525
New Jersey 3,437 158 0.041 408
Rhode Island 427 224 0.041 407
Vermont 230 353 0.038 378

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

Classification and Origin of O' NEILL

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Ireland

Language of origin: Gaelic

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: From name of parent

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the O' NEILL 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 O' NEILL 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 O' NEILL in the USA

Classification Total Percent
Mixed Race 584 1.2
Black/African American 491 1.01
Asian/Pacific 263 0.54
Native American/Alaskan 107 0.22
White (Caucasian) 45,873 94.28
White (Hispanic) 1,338 2.75

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

Meaning of O' NEILL in historical publications

O'NEILL. Of the very great antiquity of this distinguished name and family there can be no doubt. At what period the particular ancestor from whom the surname is borrowed flourished, it is hard to say, although a. definite date is assigned to him by the Irish genealogists. According to them, he lived in the fourth century of the Christian Era, and was fifty-third in descent from the founder of his race, who existed within about a centurj' and a half of the Deluge 1 How or when such statements came to be invented and received, I know not. That they are honestly believed by many Irishmen I do know. And it is not with anj' desire of disturbing family prejudices and accepted traditions, much less of derogating from the high antiquity and distinguished historical associations of the O'Neills, but simply as a matter of literary and historical criticism, that I beg to demur to the following statements, set down in good faith, in a well-known publication of recent date.

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 O' NEILL

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as O' NEILL.

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 O' NEILL

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