The history of your name

The PORTER surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 156,848 148 0.058 581
United States (1880 census) 45,150 94 0.09 903
Change since 1880 +111698 -54 -0.032 -322
Other Countries
Australia 7,851 160 0.048 480
United Kingdom 30,580 157 0.067 666
Top States for PORTER by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
California 12,009 242 0.035 355
Texas 10,755 216 0.052 516
Florida 8,957 176 0.056 560
Ohio 8,262 103 0.073 728
Illinois 6,202 145 0.050 499
Top States for PORTER by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Mississippi 3,166 113 0.111 1,113
South Carolina 4,304 116 0.107 1,073
Maine 1,359 122 0.107 1,066
Utah 2,201 79 0.099 986
Delaware 700 123 0.089 893

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

Classification and Origin of PORTER

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 PORTER 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 PORTER 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 PORTER in the USA

Classification Total Percent
Asian/Pacific 659 0.42
White (Caucasian) 111,660 71.19
Black/African American 38,334 24.44
Mixed Race 2,541 1.62
White (Hispanic) 2,478 1.58
Native American/Alaskan 1,176 0.75

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

Meaning of PORTER in historical publications

PORTER. The keeper of a door. Lat. poiia. The meaning was sometimes extended, and implied a castellan, or keeper of a castle. This was the case with the first of this name and fanrily in Cornwall, who, in a dateless deed, of prolwlbly not later than the XIII. century, is styled Janitor de Tremaion. He received a grant of lands from the Valletorts, then lords of Trematon, and those lands, situate just outside the venerable walls of that fine old feudal fortress, are still possessed by his descendants, who have ever since resided in the immediate vicinity. See C. S. Gilbert's Cornw. H.R. Portarius. Lc Porter. &e.

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 PORTER

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as PORTER.

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 PORTER

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