The history of your name

The POINTER surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 7,004 4630 0.003 26
United States (1880 census) 1,846 3201 0.004 37
Change since 1880 +5158 -1429 -0.001 -11
Other Countries
Australia 102 14046 0.001 6
United Kingdom 1,507 3740 0.003 33
Top States for POINTER by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Texas 707 3569 0.003 34
Missouri 553 1448 0.010 99
Illinois 538 2667 0.004 43
Tennessee 467 2031 0.008 82
Alabama 414 1865 0.009 93
Top States for POINTER by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Missouri 553 1448 0.010 99
Alabama 414 1865 0.009 93
Tennessee 467 2031 0.008 82
Alaska 44 2215 0.007 70
Oklahoma 220 2425 0.006 64

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

Classification and Origin of POINTER

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Occupational Name

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

Classification Total Percent
Mixed Race 153 2.18
White (Hispanic) 87 1.24
Native American/Alaskan 26 0.37
Asian/Pacific 23 0.33
Black/African American 3,192 45.57
White (Caucasian) 3,523 50.3

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

Meaning of POINTER in historical publications

POYNTER. POINTER. A. jioint, in ancient costume, was a kind of tagged lace, and hence a Pointer may have been a maker of such articles.* Some of the Poynters, however, are of French origin, being descendants of Ambrose Pointier, of Arras, who settled here at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The armorials of this family arepoi»tciUj allusive ; the shield contains pointed piles; the crest is a hand holding a cross-fitchee, or pointed, to which the fore-finger points ; while the motto is Pense a jjointer.

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 POINTER

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as POINTER.

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 POINTER

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