The history of your name

The BOWYER surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 4,099 7496 0.002 15
United States (1880 census) 978 5559 0.002 20
Change since 1880 +3121 -1937 0 -5
Other Countries
Australia 714 2266 0.004 44
United Kingdom 4,485 1397 0.01 98
Top States for BOWYER by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Virginia 505 1851 0.007 71
West Virginia 381 737 0.021 211
California 317 8559 0.001 9
Ohio 315 4474 0.003 28
Indiana 267 2928 0.004 44
Top States for BOWYER by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
West Virginia 381 737 0.021 211
Virginia 505 1851 0.007 71
Indiana 267 2928 0.004 44
Kansas 77 4373 0.003 29
Ohio 315 4474 0.003 28

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

Classification and Origin of BOWYER

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 BOWYER 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 BOWYER 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 BOWYER in the USA

Classification Total Percent
Black/African American 173 4.22
White (Hispanic) 66 1.61
Mixed Race 52 1.27
Asian/Pacific 23 0.56
Native American/Alaskan 13 0.32
White (Caucasian) 3,772 92.02

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

Meaning of BOWYER in historical publications

An archer, one who uses a bow; one who makes bows.

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


BOWYER. A maker of bows for archery. A Bowyer's Company still exists in London.

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 BOWYER

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as BOWYER.

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 BOWYER

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