The history of your name

The COURTNEY surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 26,668 1202 0.01 99
United States (1880 census) 6,469 940 0.013 129
Change since 1880 +20199 -262 -0.003 -30
Other Countries
Australia 1,269 1307 0.008 78
United Kingdom 4,872 1290 0.011 106
Top States for COURTNEY by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Texas 2,223 1185 0.011 107
California 1,951 1752 0.006 58
Florida 1,692 1272 0.011 106
Ohio 1,301 1063 0.011 115
New York 1,116 1698 0.006 59
Top States for COURTNEY by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Kentucky 1,035 608 0.026 256
Mississippi 718 640 0.025 252
Louisiana 880 769 0.020 197
Oklahoma 658 725 0.019 191
Iowa 506 614 0.017 173

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

Classification and Origin of COURTNEY

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 COURTNEY 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 COURTNEY 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 COURTNEY in the USA

Classification Total Percent
White (Hispanic) 443 1.66
Mixed Race 376 1.41
Native American/Alaskan 168 0.63
Asian/Pacific 120 0.45
White (Caucasian) 23,148 86.8
Black/African American 2,411 9.04

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

Meaning of COURTNEY in historical publications

COURTENAY. COURTNEY. Though the pedigree of this family is carried up to Pharamond, the founder of the French monarchy in the year 420, Gibbon only traces the residence of the race at Courtenay, in the Isle of France, to the year 1020. Indeed it would be useless to attempt to carry the origin of the surname beyond that point, notwithstanding the extremely curious and ingenious suggestion which follows : In the history of France we find, that "Charlemagne avaitdonne I'Aquitaine, avec le titre de roi, a son fils Louis, sous la tutelle de Guillaume au CouH-Ncz, due de Toulouse." Now who knows but the great French family of the Courteuays, and the illustrious Courtenays of Devonshire, may owe their name to this deficiency of nose in William of Toulouse? Though he does not pretend to get at the root, Gibbon only traces the family to 1020, when they were established at Courtenay ; but the sobriquet was given about the year 790, and might huve conferred a name upon tliC castle which William inhabited, and the country round it." N. & Q. vi. 106.

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 COURTNEY

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as COURTNEY.

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 COURTNEY

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