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

Balderrama, 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 Balderrama surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Balderrama in America

Balderrama is the 5968th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Balderrama surname appeared 5,766 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 2 people would have the surname Balderrama.

We can also compare 2010 data for Balderrama 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 Balderrama

The surname Balderrama is of Spanish origin and can be traced back to the 15th century in the region of Castile, Spain. It is believed to have derived from the Spanish term "baldar" which means "to lay fallow" or "to leave land uncultivated," and "rama" meaning "branch." This suggests that the name may have originated as a topographic surname, referring to an area of uncultivated or fallow land with branches or vegetation.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the Balderrama surname appears in the 1492 census records of the city of Seville, where a family by the name of Balderrama is listed as residents. This coincides with the period of the Reconquista, when many Spaniards from the northern regions, including Castile, settled in the newly conquered territories of southern Spain.

In the 16th century, the Balderrama name is found in various historical documents, including land ownership records and parish registers in the regions of Castile and Andalusia. One notable bearer of the name was Juan Balderrama, a Spanish soldier who participated in the conquest of Mexico in the early 1500s under the command of Hernán Cortés.

As the Spanish Empire expanded across the Americas, the Balderrama name traveled with the conquistadors and settlers. In the 17th century, a branch of the Balderrama family established itself in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (present-day Mexico), where they became landowners and prominent figures in the local communities.

A famous bearer of the Balderrama name from this period was Pedro Balderrama, a Spanish-Mexican explorer and cartographer who was instrumental in mapping the territories of what is now Texas and the southwestern United States in the late 1600s.

In the 18th century, the Balderrama name continued to appear in various historical records, including military rolls and census documents, across Spain and its colonies in the Americas. One notable figure was Juana Balderrama, a influential landowner and philanthropist in the region of Jalisco, Mexico, known for her contributions to the establishment of schools and churches in the area.

During the 19th century, as the Spanish colonies gained independence, the Balderrama surname became more widely dispersed throughout Latin America. In Chile, a prominent figure was Andrés Balderrama, a lawyer and politician who played a key role in the drafting of the country's constitution in the 1830s.

Over the centuries, the Balderrama name has been associated with various place names and variations in spelling, such as Valderrama, Valderra, and Balderama, reflecting the regional dialects and linguistic changes across the Spanish-speaking world.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Balderrama

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

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 Balderrama 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 Balderrama 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 Balderrama was researched and written by our team of onomatology and genealogy experts.

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

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