# Reef (surname)

Source: https://namelineage.com/surname/reef/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. Counts from the US Census Bureau; origin and etymology from Wiktionary; bearers from Wikidata. Data updated 2026-11-11.

A surname from German.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | German |
| Type | not recorded |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 580 |
| US rank (2010) | 38,214 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 532,320 people |
| Change since 2000 | +8.2% (536 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

Borrowed from North German Reef, possibly related to Reep (“rope”), or otherwise from obsolete rif (“body”) (from Proto-West Germanic *hrif).

## Who carries it

Share of people named Reef in the 2010 US Census by the Census's own race and ethnicity groups. The Census suppresses a share when the count behind it is small.

| Group | Share |
|---|---|
| White (not Hispanic) | 91% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 3.3% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 2.8% |
| Two or more races | 1.6% |

## Similar surnames

Reeve, Reiff, Reif, Reff, Reep, Reeb, Rubio, Ruff, Rapp, Robb, Rupp, Roby.

## How to read these numbers

A Census count is people alive and counted in 2010, not births, and names occurring fewer than 100 times are not published at all. Ethnicity shares are the Census's own categories.