The history of your name

The PURVIS surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 16,381 2028 0.006 61
United States (1880 census) 2,098 2853 0.004 42
Change since 1880 +14283 +825 +0.002 +19
Other Countries
Australia 851 1924 0.005 52
United Kingdom 4,201 1498 0.009 91
Top States for PURVIS by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Georgia 1,631 663 0.020 199
Florida 1,465 1439 0.009 92
Mississippi 1,268 333 0.045 446
North Carolina 1,253 973 0.016 156
Texas 917 2564 0.004 44
Top States for PURVIS by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Mississippi 1,268 333 0.045 446
Georgia 1,631 663 0.020 199
Kentucky 706 862 0.017 175
South Carolina 697 952 0.017 174
North Carolina 1,253 973 0.016 156

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

Classification and Origin of PURVIS

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

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

Classification Total Percent
White (Hispanic) 215 1.31
Mixed Race 205 1.25
Asian/Pacific 59 0.36
Native American/Alaskan 44 0.27
White (Caucasian) 13,360 81.56
Black/African American 2,498 15.25

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

Meaning of PURVIS in historical publications

PURVIS. According to the account given in B.L.G., the Purvises of Darsham, CO. Suffolk, originated from the family of Purvis " of that Ilk" in Scotland. " That Ilk," however, does not appear to be identified, although the name Purvoys, or Perves, is found in ancient records of the Lowland counties. I tliink the name is more likely to be derived from the A'Norm. 2JC7'vis, or pa rvise, vhich Kelham defines as, " the outer court of a palace or great house. , . . Such was the place in PalaceYard, near Westminster Hall, mentioned by Fortescue, De Laud. Leg. Ang. c. 51; and Dugdale also takes notice of the Pervyse of Pa?vles."

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 PURVIS

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as PURVIS.

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 PURVIS

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