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    The surname Balfour

    A Scottish Gaelic place surname, carried by 2,268 people in the United States.

    2 syllables Soundex B416

    Balfour: #13,435 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#10Martinez#100Jimenez#1,000Archer Balfour #13,435, 2,268 people Balfour: #13,435 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#100Jimenez Balfour #13,435, 2,268 people
    Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Balfour is more common than 91.7% of them.

    Origin

    Scottish Gaelic origin

    From Scottish Gaelic baile (“village, town”) + pùir, genitive form of pór (“pasture, grass”).

    Balfour is a place surname: taken from where an ancestor lived or came from.

    One of 277 Scottish Gaelic surnames on this site.

    Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

    How common it is

    2010 US Census

    There were 2,268 people named Balfour in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 136,131 Americans. That is up 8.0% since 2000, when the Census counted 2,100.

    #13,435
    rank among US surnames
    2,268
    people in 2010
    0.8
    per 100,000 Americans
    +8%
    change since 2000 (was #13,311)
    RankSurnamePeople1 in
    #13,427Legere2,270136,011
    #13,431Renard2,269136,071
    #13,435Forshee2,268136,131
    #13,438Epperly2,267136,191
    #13,440Lerman2,266136,251

    Who is named Balfour

    Race and Hispanic origin as people reported it in the 2010 Census

    64% of people named Balfour identified as white (not Hispanic), 29% as Black (not Hispanic) and 4.1% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).

    • White (not Hispanic) 64%
    • Black (not Hispanic) 29%
    • Hispanic or Latino (any race) 4.1%
    • Two or more races 1.9%
    • Asian and Pacific Islander 0.7%
    • American Indian and Alaska Native 0.2%

    Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

    Famous Balfours

    7 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first

    • Eric Balfour
      American actor and singer, born 1977
    • John Hutton Balfour
      British botanist (1808-1884)
    • Francis Maitland Balfour
      British biologist (1851–1882)
    • Isaac Bayley Balfour
      British botanist and academic (1853-1922)
    • Betty Balfour
      British actress (1903-1977)
    • Grant Balfour
      Australian baseball player, born 1977
    • Frances Balfour
      British aristocrat and suffragist (1858-1931)

    Notable Balfours come mostly from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (3), the United Kingdom (2) and the United States (1).

    Spellings and sound-alikes

    Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

    Surnames that sound like Balfour

    Balfour has the Soundex code B416, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code B416.

    Other Scottish Gaelic surnames

    All 277 Scottish Gaelic surnames

    Questions

    Where does the surname Balfour come from?
    From Scottish Gaelic baile (“village, town”) + pùir, genitive form of pór (“pasture, grass”).
    How common is the surname Balfour?
    2,268 people in the United States had the surname Balfour in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 136,131 Americans. It ranked 13,435th of 162,253 surnames.
    What ethnicity is the surname Balfour?
    In the 2010 Census, 64% of people named Balfour identified as white (not Hispanic), and 29% as Black (not Hispanic).
    Who is the most famous person named Balfour?
    Eric Balfour, American actor and singer, followed by John Hutton Balfour.
    Where is the surname Balfour most common?
    Wikidata records people named Balfour in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States and 1 other country.
    What type of surname is Balfour?
    Balfour is a place surname, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from.
    Is the surname Balfour getting more or less common?
    More common. 2,100 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 2,268 in 2010, up 8.0%.