Find out how popular the last name Appel is in the United States and learn more about the meaning, history, and race and ethnic origin of people in America who are named Appel.

Appel, like all of the last names we have data for, is identified by the U.S. Census Bureau as a surname which has more than 100 occurrences in the United States in the Decennial Census survey. The most recent statistics we have for the Appel surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Appel in America

Appel is the 4473rd most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Appel surname appeared 7,938 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 3 people would have the surname Appel.

We can also compare 2010 data for Appel to data from the previous census in 2000. The table below contains all of the statistics for both years in a side-by-side comparison.

The history of the last name Appel

The surname "APPEL" is of Germanic origin, and can be traced back to the Middle Ages in Germany and the Netherlands. Its earliest known spelling was "Appel," derived from the Old German word "appal" or "aphul," meaning "apple." This suggests that the name may have initially referred to someone who cultivated or sold apples, or lived near an apple orchard or tree.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the name can be found in the "Codex Diplomaticus Saxoniae Regiae," a collection of medieval German documents from the 10th to the 14th centuries. In this text, a certain "Conradus Appel" is mentioned in a document dated 1292, living in the town of Meissen, located in present-day Saxony, Germany.

Another notable early reference is from the "Liber Censualis" of the Archdiocese of Utrecht, a medieval census of landowners and tenants in the Netherlands, which lists a "Johannes Appel" as a landowner in the village of Amersfoort in 1376.

The name "APPEL" also appears in various town and village records throughout Germany and the Netherlands during the 15th and 16th centuries, often with variations in spelling such as "Appell," "Appele," or "Apfel."

In the 17th century, a notable bearer of the name was Johann Samuel Appel (1628-1693), a German Lutheran theologian and philosopher who served as a professor at the University of Wittenberg.

In the 18th century, Johann Georg Appel (1708-1784) was a German composer and violinist, known for his contributions to the development of the early Classical style in music.

The 19th century saw the birth of Carl Appel (1857-1928), a German mathematician who made significant contributions to the field of algebraic geometry and the theory of algebraic functions.

Another prominent figure with this surname was Annie Appel (1859-1934), an American writer and activist who advocated for women's rights and suffrage during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In the 20th century, Alfred Appel Jr. (1925-2009) was an American literary scholar and biographer, best known for his comprehensive biography of the novelist Vladimir Nabokov.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Appel

We also have some data on the ancestry of people with the surname Appel.

The below race categories are the modified race categories used in the Census Bureau's population estimates program. All people were categorized into six mutually exclusive racial and Hispanic origin groups:

1. White only
2. Black only
3. American Indian and Alaskan Native only
4. Asian and Pacific Islander only
5. Hispanic
6. Two or More Races

For the most recent 2010 census data, the race/ethnic origin breakdown for Appel was:

Note: Any fields showing (S) means the data was suppressed for privacy so that the data does not in any way identify any specific individuals.

Since we have data from the previous census in 2000, we can also compare the values to see how the popularity of Appel has changed in the 10 years between the two census surveys.

Data source

The last name data and ethnic breakdown of last names is sourced directly from the Decennial Census survey, conducted every 10 years by the United States Census Bureau.

The history and meaning of the name Appel was researched and written by our team of onomatology and genealogy experts.

If you have a correction or suggestion to improve the history of Appel, please contact us.

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