The history of your name

The DUNCAN surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 130,419 203 0.048 483
United States (1880 census) 28,005 183 0.056 560
Change since 1880 +102414 -20 -0.008 -77
Other Countries
Australia 7,518 168 0.046 460
United Kingdom 25,181 205 0.055 548
Top States for DUNCAN by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Texas 10,226 226 0.049 490
California 9,662 315 0.029 285
Florida 7,273 232 0.046 455
Tennessee 6,474 98 0.114 1,138
North Carolina 6,108 142 0.076 759
Top States for DUNCAN by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Tennessee 6,474 98 0.114 1,138
South Carolina 4,536 103 0.113 1,131
Kentucky 4,507 85 0.112 1,115
Arkansas 2,507 105 0.094 938
Oklahoma 3,108 105 0.090 901

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

Classification and Origin of DUNCAN

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Scotland

Language of origin: Gaelic

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: From given name or forename

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

Classification Total Percent
Asian/Pacific 509 0.39
White (Caucasian) 102,875 78.88
Black/African American 21,493 16.48
Mixed Race 2,152 1.65
White (Hispanic) 2,165 1.66
Native American/Alaskan 1,226 0.94

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

Meaning of DUNCAN in historical publications

(origin: Gaelic.) A powerful chieftain, From Dun, a fortress, and ceann, head or chief. Duncean or Duncan, strong-headed.

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


Similar names to DUNCAN

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as DUNCAN.

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 DUNCAN

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