The STIRLING surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	2,691	10869	0.001	10
United States (1880 census)	564	8768	0.001	11
Change since 1880	+2127	-2101	0	-1
Other Countries
Australia	1,398	1169	0.009	86
United Kingdom	5,228	1195	0.011	114

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.

Classification and Origin of STIRLING

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Scotland

Language of origin: Gaelic

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

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

Classification	Total	Percent
Mixed Race	46	1.71
Black/African American	42	1.56
White (Hispanic)	38	1.41
Asian/Pacific	20	0.74
Native American/Alaskan	5	0.19
White (Caucasian)	2,540	94.39

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

Meaning of STIRLING in historical publications

(origin: Local) From the city of Stirling, the Gaelic name of which is Strila, by some supposed to signify "the place of strife," from Stri-thralla. A Mr. Stirling, who was minister of the barony church of Glasgow, during the war maintained against the insatiable ambition of Louis XIV., in that part of his prayer which related to public affairs, used to beseech the Lord that he would take the haughty tyrant of France, and shake him over the mouth of hell, "but good Lord," added the worthy man, "dinna let him fa' in." This curious prayer having been mentioned to Louis, he laughed heartily at this new and ingenious method of punishing ambition, and frequently afterward gave as a toast, "The good Scotch parson."

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

STIRLING. From the town of Stirling, which gives name to the Scottish shire, anciently written Stryvelin. The family are of great antiquity, being deduced from Walter de Stryvelin, who appears as witness to a charter of Prince Henry, son of King David I., in the XII. century. Courthope's Debrett. Four baronetcies have been accorded to this family.

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 STIRLING

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as STIRLING.

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.