# Winch (surname)

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

A surname from Old English.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | English |
| Type | place, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 1,650 |
| US rank (2010) | 17,169 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 187,119 people |
| Change since 2000 | -3.7% (1,714 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

Various origins: * A topographic surname for someone who lived at a place where boats were hauled up onto the land by means of pulleys, from Old English winċe (“winch”). * From the second part of Old English hlēapewince (“lapwing”), probably a nickname.

## Who carries it

Share of people named Winch 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) | 95% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 0.8% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 1.4% |
| Two or more races | 1.5% |

## Similar surnames

Wing, Wink, Wunsch, Wong, Wang, Womack, Weems, Wingo, Weng, Wines, Wiens, Wenz.

## 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.