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Name Lineage

    The surname Spear

    An English occupational surname, carried by 13,284 people in the United States.

    1 syllable Soundex S160

    Spear: #2,712 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#10Martinez#100Jimenez#1,000Archer#10,001Dubon Spear #2,712, 13,284 people Spear: #2,712 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#100Jimenez Spear #2,712, 13,284 people
    Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Spear is more common than 98.3% of them.

    Origin

    English origin

    From Middle English spere (“spear”), from Old English spere (“spear”), variously intending a spearman, a spearmaker, or a person tall and thin in a way reminiscent of a spear.

    Spear is an occupational surname: named after the work an ancestor did.

    One of 1,446 English surnames on this site.

    Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

    How common it is

    2010 US Census

    There were 13,284 people named Spear in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 23,242 Americans. That is up 1.8% since 2000, when the Census counted 13,049.

    #2,712
    rank among US surnames
    13,284
    people in 2010
    4.5
    per 100,000 Americans
    +1.8%
    change since 2000 (was #2,544)
    RankSurnamePeople1 in
    #2,703Tam13,32723,167
    #2,704Bales13,32623,169
    #2,705Bourgeois13,32523,170
    #2,706Carrington13,32023,179
    #2,707Jasso13,31823,183
    #2,708Ko13,31223,193
    #2,709Stockton13,30623,203

    Who is named Spear

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

    87% of people named Spear identified as white (not Hispanic), 7.4% as Black (not Hispanic) and 2.5% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).

    • White (not Hispanic) 87%
    • Black (not Hispanic) 7.4%
    • Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.5%
    • Two or more races 1.9%
    • American Indian and Alaska Native 0.8%
    • Asian and Pacific Islander 0.5%

    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 Spear

    Spear has the Soundex code S160, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code S160.

    Other English surnames

    All 1,446 English surnames

    Questions

    Where does the surname Spear come from?
    From Middle English spere (“spear”), from Old English spere (“spear”), variously intending a spearman, a spearmaker, or a person tall and thin in a way reminiscent of a spear.
    How common is the surname Spear?
    13,284 people in the United States had the surname Spear in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 23,242 Americans. It ranked 2,712th of 162,253 surnames.
    What ethnicity is the surname Spear?
    In the 2010 Census, 87% of people named Spear identified as white (not Hispanic), and 7.4% as Black (not Hispanic).
    What type of surname is Spear?
    Spear is an occupational surname, named after the work an ancestor did.
    Is the surname Spear getting more or less common?
    More common. 13,049 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 13,284 in 2010, up 1.8%.