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Name Lineage

    The surname Reef

    A German surname, carried by 580 people in the United States.

    1 syllable Soundex R100

    Reef: #38,214 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#10Martinez#100Jimenez#1,000Archer#10,001Dubon Reef #38,214, 580 people Reef: #38,214 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#100Jimenez Reef #38,214, 580 people
    Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Reef is more common than 76.4% of them.

    Origin

    German origin

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

    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 580 people named Reef in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 532,320 Americans. That is up 8.2% since 2000, when the Census counted 536.

    #38,214
    rank among US surnames
    580
    people in 2010
    0.2
    per 100,000 Americans
    +8.2%
    change since 2000 (was #38,771)

    Who is named Reef

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

    91% of people named Reef identified as white (not Hispanic), 3.3% as Black (not Hispanic) and 2.8% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).

    • White (not Hispanic) 91%
    • Black (not Hispanic) 3.3%
    • Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.8%
    • Two or more races 1.6%
    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 Reef

    Reef has the Soundex code R100, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code R100.

    Other German surnames

    All 1,101 German surnames

    Questions

    Where does the surname Reef come from?
    Borrowed from North German Reef, possibly related to Reep (“rope”), or otherwise from obsolete rif (“body”) (from Proto-West Germanic *hrif).
    How common is the surname Reef?
    580 people in the United States had the surname Reef in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 532,320 Americans. It ranked 38,214th of 162,253 surnames.
    What ethnicity is the surname Reef?
    In the 2010 Census, 91% of people named Reef identified as white (not Hispanic), and 3.3% as Black (not Hispanic).
    Is the surname Reef getting more or less common?
    More common. 536 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 580 in 2010, up 8.2%.