The history of your name

The OLIVER surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 111,641 248 0.041 414
United States (1880 census) 24,387 211 0.049 488
Change since 1880 +87254 -37 -0.008 -74
Other Countries
Australia 6,454 204 0.039 395
United Kingdom 29,137 171 0.063 634
Top States for OLIVER by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Texas 9,013 278 0.043 432
California 8,991 362 0.027 265
Florida 7,338 243 0.046 459
Georgia 5,550 168 0.068 678
New York 4,963 316 0.026 262
Top States for OLIVER by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Alabama 4,294 140 0.097 966
South Carolina 3,114 172 0.078 776
Maine 968 229 0.076 759
Tennessee 4,251 188 0.075 747
Georgia 5,550 168 0.068 678

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

Classification and Origin of OLIVER

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: From given name or forename

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

Classification Total Percent
Native American/Alaskan 804 0.72
Asian/Pacific 603 0.54
White (Caucasian) 74,509 66.74
Black/African American 29,931 26.81
White (Hispanic) 3,718 3.33
Mixed Race 2,065 1.85

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

Meaning of OLIVER in historical publications

From the Latin Oliva, an olive-tree, an emblem of peace.

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


OLIVER. Both as a baptismal name and a surname, was probably imported from France, where it was long associated witii romantic literature. The Domesdaj' of Devonshire presents us with a tenant called Oliver, in the modern orthography.

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 OLIVER

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as OLIVER.

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 OLIVER

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