The history of your name

The MEREDITH surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 23,937 1358 0.009 89
United States (1880 census) 3,873 1585 0.008 77
Change since 1880 +20064 +227 +0.001 +12
Other Countries
Australia 2,320 692 0.014 142
United Kingdom 8,706 696 0.019 190
Top States for MEREDITH by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Kentucky 2,106 263 0.052 521
Texas 1,610 1551 0.008 77
California 1,562 2059 0.005 46
Florida 1,354 1523 0.008 85
Virginia 1,206 736 0.017 170
Top States for MEREDITH by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Kentucky 2,106 263 0.052 521
Delaware 193 695 0.025 246
Arkansas 598 591 0.022 224
Virginia 1,206 736 0.017 170
Wyoming 82 655 0.017 166

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

Classification and Origin of MEREDITH

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Wales

Language of origin: Welsh

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 MEREDITH 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 MEREDITH 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 MEREDITH in the USA

Classification Total Percent
White (Hispanic) 345 1.44
Mixed Race 323 1.35
Asian/Pacific 177 0.74
Native American/Alaskan 81 0.34
White (Caucasian) 20,550 85.85
Black/African American 2,463 10.29

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

Meaning of MEREDITH in historical publications

This family is of British origin. Old chronicles relate that the first settlement of the family was situated on the Welsh shore, where the sea washed in with great impetuosity and noise, from whence it is added they took the name of Meredyth, or Ameredith. Maredydd, Welsh, the animated one.

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


MEREDITH. An ancient Welsh personal or baptismal name.

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 MEREDITH

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as MEREDITH.

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 MEREDITH

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