The ROBERTS surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	366,215	45	0.136	1,358
United States (1880 census)	81,522	37	0.163	1,630
Change since 1880	+284693	-8	-0.027	-272
Other Countries
Australia	24,476	23	0.15	1,497
United Kingdom	136,800	11	0.298	2,979

Top States for ROBERTS by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Texas	28,473	55	0.137	1,365
Florida	26,284	40	0.164	1,645
California	25,710	83	0.076	759
Georgia	16,750	34	0.205	2,046
Ohio	16,638	35	0.147	1,466
Top States for ROBERTS by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Tennessee	13,951	30	0.245	2,452
Mississippi	6,811	34	0.239	2,394
Oklahoma	8,211	22	0.238	2,380
Kentucky	9,579	27	0.237	2,370
Alabama	10,252	39	0.231	2,305

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

Classification and Origin of ROBERTS

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Wales

Language of origin: Welsh

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 ROBERTS 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 ROBERTS 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 ROBERTS in the USA

Classification	Total	Percent
White (Caucasian)	291,361	79.56
Black/African American	58,082	15.86
Mixed Race	6,116	1.67
White (Hispanic)	5,786	1.58
Native American/Alaskan	3,113	0.85
Asian/Pacific	1,721	0.47

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

Meaning of ROBERTS in historical publications

(origin: Sax.) From Rod, counsel, and bert or bericht, bright or famous--famous in counsel.

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

ROBERTS. ROBARTS. See Robert. The family of Roberts of Glassenbury, CO. Kent, extinct baronets, according to a genealogy in Harl. MSS., are descended from a William Rookherst, a Scotchman, who settled in Kent, in the third year of Henry I., and purchased lands at Goudhurst, which he called after his own name. This name he afterwards changed to Roobertes, which finally became Roberts. The tradition of descent from a Scotchman may be true or not, but that a North Briton gave name to a place in Kent called Rookherst, is a pure figment. The termination herst, or Jiurst, is scarcely, if at all, known in Scotland, while the Weald of Kent, where the Robertses first appear, abounds with it. The truth, doubtless, is, that the locality called from Saxon times Rooklierst, gave the name De Rookherst to its early possessors, and that one of them in later times — the son of a Robert — dropped his local surname, and assumed a patronymical one.

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 ROBERTS

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as ROBERTS.

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.