How common is the surname Thorndike?

556 people in the United States had the surname Thorndike in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 555,298 Americans. It ranked 39,555th of 162,253 surnames.

What ethnicity is the surname Thorndike?

In the 2010 Census, 93% of people named Thorndike identified as white (not Hispanic), and 6.8% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).

Who is the most famous person named Thorndike?

Edward Thorndike, American psychologist, followed by Sybil Thorndike.

Where is the surname Thorndike most common?

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

Is the surname Thorndike getting more or less common?

More common. 554 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 556 in 2010, up 0.4%.

The surname Thorndike

An English place surname, carried by 556 people in the United States.

2 syllables Soundex T653

Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Thorndike is more common than 75.6% of them.

Origin

English origin

Topographic surname for someone who lived by a sort of palisade made with thornbushes, from Old English þorn (“thornbush”) + dīc (“ditch; dike”). The town was named after Israel Thorndike, a landowner.

Thorndike is a place surname: taken from where an ancestor lived or came from.

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 556 people named Thorndike in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 555,298 Americans. That is about the same as in 2000, when the Census counted 554.

#39,555

rank among US surnames

556

people in 2010

0.2

per 100,000 Americans

+0.4%

change since 2000 (was #37,728)

Who is named Thorndike

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

93% of people named Thorndike identified as white (not Hispanic), 6.8% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).

White (not Hispanic) 93%
Hispanic or Latino (any race) 6.8%

The Census suppresses very small shares to protect privacy; Black, Multiracial are not shown.

Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

Famous Thorndikes

4 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first

Edward Thorndike
American psychologist, 1874–1949
Sybil Thorndike
British actress (1882–1976)
Lynn Thorndike
American historian of medieval science and alchemy (1882–1965)
Russell Thorndike
British actor and novelist (1885-1972)

Notable Thorndikes come mostly from the United States (2), the United Kingdom (1) and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1).

Spellings and sound-alikes

Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

Variant spellings

Thorndyke

Surnames that sound like Thorndike

Thornton

Thorndike has the Soundex code T653, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code T653.

Other English surnames

All 1,446 English surnames

Questions

Where does the surname Thorndike come from?: Topographic surname for someone who lived by a sort of palisade made with thornbushes, from Old English þorn (“thornbush”) + dīc (“ditch; dike”). The town was named after Israel Thorndike, a landowner.
How common is the surname Thorndike?: 556 people in the United States had the surname Thorndike in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 555,298 Americans. It ranked 39,555th of 162,253 surnames.
What ethnicity is the surname Thorndike?: In the 2010 Census, 93% of people named Thorndike identified as white (not Hispanic), and 6.8% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).
Who is the most famous person named Thorndike?: Edward Thorndike, American psychologist, followed by Sybil Thorndike.
Where is the surname Thorndike most common?: Wikidata records people named Thorndike in the United States, the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
What type of surname is Thorndike?: Thorndike is a place surname, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from.
Is the surname Thorndike getting more or less common?: More common. 554 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 556 in 2010, up 0.4%.
What are other spellings of Thorndike?: Thorndyke.