# Sowerby (surname)

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

A habitational surname from Old Norse.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | Norse |
| Type | place, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 326 |
| US rank (2010) | 61,585 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 947,072 people |
| Change since 2000 | +9.8% (297 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

From Old Norse saurr (“mud, dirt, sour ground”) + bý (“farmstead”).

## Who carries it

Share of people named Sowerby 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) | 86% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 8.3% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 3.7% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 0.0% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Sowerby in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United States.

## People named Sowerby

- James Sowerby, British botanical illustrator and mineralogist (1757-1822)
- James De Carle Sowerby, British botanist, mineralogist and illustrator (1787-1871)
- George Brettingham Sowerby, British conchologist; (1788-1854)
- Leo Sowerby, American composer and church musician (1895-1968)
- George Brettingham Sowerby III, British conchologist; (1843-1921)

## Similar surnames

Sorbo, Sharp, Sharpe, Sarabia, Shreve, Saravia, Scharf, Sheriff, Sharif, Serpa, Sherpa, Scharff.

## 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.