The surname Telfer
A French surname, carried by 1,600 people in the United States.
2 syllables Soundex T416
Origin
French origin
Scottish and North English surname, from a personal name based on a byname for a strong man or ferocious warrior, from Old French tailler (“to cut”) + fer (“iron”).
One of 791 French surnames on this site.
Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How common it is
2010 US Census
There were 1,600 people named Telfer in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 192,966 Americans. That is up 15% since 2000, when the Census counted 1,387.
Who is named Telfer
Race and Hispanic origin as people reported it in the 2010 Census
80% of people named Telfer identified as white (not Hispanic), 14% as Black (not Hispanic) and 3.1% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).
- White (not Hispanic) 80%
- Black (not Hispanic) 14%
- Hispanic or Latino (any race) 3.1%
- Two or more races 1.2%
- Asian and Pacific Islander 1.0%
- American Indian and Alaska Native 0.4%
Spellings and sound-alikes
Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling
Surnames that sound like Telfer
Telfer has the Soundex code T416, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code T416.
Other French surnames
Questions
- Where does the surname Telfer come from?
- Scottish and North English surname, from a personal name based on a byname for a strong man or ferocious warrior, from Old French tailler (“to cut”) + fer (“iron”).
- How common is the surname Telfer?
- 1,600 people in the United States had the surname Telfer in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 192,966 Americans. It ranked 17,572nd of 162,253 surnames.
- What ethnicity is the surname Telfer?
- In the 2010 Census, 80% of people named Telfer identified as white (not Hispanic), and 14% as Black (not Hispanic).
- Is the surname Telfer getting more or less common?
- More common. 1,387 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 1,600 in 2010, up 15%.