The ONEILL 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 ONEILL 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 ONEILL 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

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

Classification and Origin of ONEILL

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 ONEILL 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 ONEILL 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 ONEILL 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 ONEILL surname who reported their ethnic background as being in these broad categories in the most recent national census.

Meaning of ONEILL 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 ONEILL

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as ONEILL.

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.