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The surname Tinker

An occupational surname, carried by 6,291 people in the United States.

2 syllables Soundex T526

Tinker: #5,525 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#10Martinez#100Jimenez#1,000Archer Tinker #5,525, 6,291 people Tinker: #5,525 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#100Jimenez Tinker #5,525, 6,291 people
Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Tinker is more common than 96.6% of them.

Origin

A northern English surname originating as an occupation for someone who mends pots and pans.

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

Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How common it is

2010 US Census

There were 6,291 people named Tinker in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 49,077 Americans. That is up 6.7% since 2000, when the Census counted 5,898.

#5,525
rank among US surnames
6,291
people in 2010
2.1
per 100,000 Americans
+6.7%
change since 2000 (was #5,430)
RankSurnamePeople1 in
#5,520Halvorson6,29849,023
#5,521Speck6,29749,031
#5,522Hodson6,29649,038
#5,525Tinker6,29149,077
#5,529Carrigan6,29049,085

Who is named Tinker

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

78% of people named Tinker identified as white (not Hispanic), 13% as Black (not Hispanic) and 3.6% as American Indian and Alaska Native.

  • White (not Hispanic) 78%
  • Black (not Hispanic) 13%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native 3.6%
  • Two or more races 2.5%
  • Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.2%
  • Asian and Pacific Islander 0.6%

Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

Famous Tinkers

2 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first

  • Gerald Tinker
    American football player and track athlete (born 1951)
  • Frank Glasgow Tinker
    American flying ace (1909–1939)

Spellings and sound-alikes

Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

Surnames that sound like Tinker

Tinker has the Soundex code T526, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code T526.

Questions

How common is the surname Tinker?
6,291 people in the United States had the surname Tinker in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 49,077 Americans. It ranked 5,525th of 162,253 surnames.
What ethnicity is the surname Tinker?
In the 2010 Census, 78% of people named Tinker identified as white (not Hispanic), and 13% as Black (not Hispanic).
Who is the most famous person named Tinker?
Gerald Tinker, American football player and track athlete (born 1951), followed by Frank Glasgow Tinker.
Where is the surname Tinker most common?
Wikidata records people named Tinker in the United States.
What type of surname is Tinker?
Tinker is an occupational surname, named after the work an ancestor did.
Is the surname Tinker getting more or less common?
More common. 5,898 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 6,291 in 2010, up 6.7%.