The history of your name

The HOUSTON surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 54,026 563 0.02 200
United States (1880 census) 11,235 533 0.022 225
Change since 1880 +42791 -30 -0.002 -25
Other Countries
Australia 1,805 901 0.011 110
United Kingdom 8,011 764 0.017 174
Top States for HOUSTON by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Texas 5,765 439 0.028 276
California 4,113 817 0.012 121
Georgia 3,004 342 0.037 367
Florida 2,943 715 0.018 184
Tennessee 2,892 299 0.051 508
Top States for HOUSTON by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Mississippi 1,770 233 0.062 622
Tennessee 2,892 299 0.051 508
Alabama 2,077 350 0.047 467
Georgia 3,004 342 0.037 367
North Carolina 2,756 430 0.034 342

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

Classification and Origin of HOUSTON

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Scotland

Language of origin: Gaelic

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Location or Geographical Feature

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

Classification Total Percent
White (Hispanic) 810 1.5
Native American/Alaskan 303 0.56
Asian/Pacific 227 0.42
White (Caucasian) 29,514 54.63
Black/African American 22,107 40.92
Mixed Race 1,064 1.97

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

Meaning of HOUSTON in historical publications

(origin: Local) From the parish of Houston, in Renfrewshire, Scotland. There is an old tradition, that in the reign of Malcolm IV., A.D. 1153, Hugh Padvinan obtained a grant of the barony of Kilpeter, from Baldwin of Biggar, sheriff of Lanark, and hence called Hughstown, corrupted into Houstoun. These Houstons were of great consideration in Renfrewshire.

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


HOUSTON. HOUSTOUN, The ancient knightly family so called originally bore the name of Paduinan from a place in CO. Lanark. In the XII. cent. Hugli de P. acquired the lands of Kilpeter, and built a residence there, to which he gave the

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 HOUSTON

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as HOUSTON.

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 HOUSTON

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