The CHURCH surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	35,539	890	0.013	132
United States (1880 census)	11,329	529	0.023	227
Change since 1880	+24210	-361	-0.01	-95
Other Countries
Australia	1,384	1185	0.008	85
United Kingdom	7,671	803	0.017	167

Top States for CHURCH by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
North Carolina	3,605	296	0.045	448
California	2,285	1456	0.007	67
Michigan	1,959	499	0.020	197
Ohio	1,926	659	0.017	170
Florida	1,890	1100	0.012	118
Top States for CHURCH by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
North Carolina	3,605	296	0.045	448
West Virginia	563	477	0.031	311
Vermont	170	560	0.028	279
Idaho	357	445	0.028	276
Delaware	191	701	0.024	244

Notes

Total is the total number of people with that surname.
Rank is the position in the list of names ordered by total (eg, a rank of 1 means that it's the most common name, and a rank of 10 means it's the tenth most common, etc).
Frequency is the percentage of people with that surname.
Per million people is the number of people with that surname per million of the population.

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

Classification and Origin of CHURCH

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Location or Geographical Feature

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

Classification	Total	Percent
White (Hispanic)	512	1.44
Mixed Race	501	1.41
Native American/Alaskan	249	0.7
Asian/Pacific	131	0.37
White (Caucasian)	32,291	90.86
Black/African American	1,855	5.22

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

Meaning of CHURCH in historical publications

(origin: Local) A house of Christian worship, derived from the old English chirch, and Scottish Kirk, Latin circus, and this from the Gaelic cearcal, a temple, a round building. The root of Church is from the Gaelic car, roundness, from which we have cirke or kirke.

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

CHURCH. From residence near one. In the H.R. this name is found under various forms, as Atte Cbirche, De la Chirke, Ecclesia, De Ecclesia, and Ad Ecclesiam.

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 CHURCH

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as CHURCH.

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.