The history of your name

The ROBERTS surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 366,215 45 0.136 1,358
United States (1880 census) 81,522 37 0.163 1,630
Change since 1880 +284693 -8 -0.027 -272
Other Countries
Australia 24,476 23 0.15 1,497
United Kingdom 136,800 11 0.298 2,979
Top States for ROBERTS by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Texas 28,473 55 0.137 1,365
Florida 26,284 40 0.164 1,645
California 25,710 83 0.076 759
Georgia 16,750 34 0.205 2,046
Ohio 16,638 35 0.147 1,466
Top States for ROBERTS by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Tennessee 13,951 30 0.245 2,452
Mississippi 6,811 34 0.239 2,394
Oklahoma 8,211 22 0.238 2,380
Kentucky 9,579 27 0.237 2,370
Alabama 10,252 39 0.231 2,305

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

Classification and Origin of ROBERTS

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Wales

Language of origin: Welsh

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: From name of parent

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

Classification Total Percent
White (Caucasian) 291,361 79.56
Black/African American 58,082 15.86
Mixed Race 6,116 1.67
White (Hispanic) 5,786 1.58
Native American/Alaskan 3,113 0.85
Asian/Pacific 1,721 0.47

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

Meaning of ROBERTS in historical publications

(origin: Sax.) From Rod, counsel, and bert or bericht, bright or famous--famous in counsel.

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


ROBERTS. ROBARTS. See Robert. The family of Roberts of Glassenbury, CO. Kent, extinct baronets, according to a genealogy in Harl. MSS., are descended from a William Rookherst, a Scotchman, who settled in Kent, in the third year of Henry I., and purchased lands at Goudhurst, which he called after his own name. This name he afterwards changed to Roobertes, which finally became Roberts. The tradition of descent from a Scotchman may be true or not, but that a North Briton gave name to a place in Kent called Rookherst, is a pure figment. The termination herst, or Jiurst, is scarcely, if at all, known in Scotland, while the Weald of Kent, where the Robertses first appear, abounds with it. The truth, doubtless, is, that the locality called from Saxon times Rooklierst, gave the name De Rookherst to its early possessors, and that one of them in later times — the son of a Robert — dropped his local surname, and assumed a patronymical one.

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 ROBERTS

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as ROBERTS.

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 ROBERTS

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