Skip to content

The surname Ess

A German surname, carried by 523 people in the United States.

1 syllable Soundex E200

Ess: #41,579 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#10Martinez#100Jimenez#1,000Archer#10,001Dubon Ess #41,579, 523 people Ess: #41,579 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#100Jimenez Ess #41,579, 523 people
Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Ess is more common than 74.4% of them.

Origin

German origin

* As a north/Low German surname, from the archaic noun es, ehe (“swamp water”), possibly from a corruption of *ahu (“stream, river”). * As a Switzerland German/Alemannic German surname, from Ess (“pasture, grazing area”), from Proto-Germanic *atiska- (“grainfield”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *h₂edos- (“sort of cereal, grain”), related to Latin ador (“spelt”), Hittite [script needed] (ḫattāi-, “to cut (grain)”). * Also as a Swiss German surname, from a short form of Oswald. * As a Dutch surname, shortened from Van Ess, itself a variant of Van Es, from van + the placename Esch in North Brabant.

One of 1,101 German surnames on this site.

Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How common it is

2010 US Census

There were 523 people named Ess in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 590,336 Americans. That is about the same as in 2000, when the Census counted 524.

#41,579
rank among US surnames
523
people in 2010
0.2
per 100,000 Americans
-0.2%
change since 2000 (was #39,499)

Who is named Ess

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

91% of people named Ess identified as white (not Hispanic), 2.7% as two or more races and 2.3% as Black (not Hispanic).

  • White (not Hispanic) 91%
  • Two or more races 2.7%
  • Black (not Hispanic) 2.3%
  • Hispanic or Latino (any race) 1.7%
The Census suppresses very small shares to protect privacy; Asian & Pacific Islander, Native American are not shown.

Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

Spellings and sound-alikes

Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

Surnames that sound like Ess

Ess has the Soundex code E200, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code E200.

Other German surnames

Questions

Where does the surname Ess come from?
* As a north/Low German surname, from the archaic noun es, ehe (“swamp water”), possibly from a corruption of *ahu (“stream, river”). * As a Switzerland German/Alemannic German surname, from Ess (“pasture, grazing area”), from Proto-Germanic *atiska- (“grainfield”), possibly from…
How common is the surname Ess?
523 people in the United States had the surname Ess in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 590,336 Americans. It ranked 41,579th of 162,253 surnames.
What ethnicity is the surname Ess?
In the 2010 Census, 91% of people named Ess identified as white (not Hispanic), and 2.7% as two or more races.
Is the surname Ess getting more or less common?
Less common. 524 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 523 in 2010, down 0.2%.