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

Bronstein, 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 Bronstein surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Bronstein in America

Bronstein is the 16450th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Bronstein surname appeared 1,748 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 1 people would have the surname Bronstein.

We can also compare 2010 data for Bronstein 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 Bronstein

The surname Bronstein is of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, tracing its roots back to the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe during the 19th century. It is believed to have originated as a locational name, derived from the town of Bronshtein or Bronshtayn in what is now Belarus.

Bronstein is a variant spelling of the Yiddish name "Bronshteyn," which itself is derived from the German "Braunstein," meaning "brown stone." This suggests that the earliest bearers of this surname may have lived near or worked with brown stones, possibly as masons or quarry workers.

Some of the earliest recorded instances of the Bronstein surname can be found in Russian census records and Jewish community registers from the early 1800s. One notable example is the 1834 revision list for the town of Mogilev, which includes several Bronstein families.

A famous bearer of the Bronstein name was Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), the Marxist revolutionary and theorist who played a leading role in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. His original surname was Bronshtein, but he later adopted the more Russian-sounding "Trotsky" as a revolutionary alias.

Other notable individuals with the Bronstein surname include:

1. Lev Davidovich Bronstein (1888-1938), a Soviet military leader and Bolshevik revolutionary.
2. Raphaël Bronstein (1837-1924), a French naval officer and explorer.
3. Samson Bronstein (1908-1979), a Russian-American chess player and author.
4. David Bronstein (1924-2006), a Soviet chess grandmaster and author.
5. David Bronstein (born 1969), an American mathematician and computer scientist.

While the Bronstein surname has its roots in Eastern Europe, it has since spread worldwide, with bearers in various countries, including the United States, Israel, and parts of Western Europe.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Bronstein

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

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

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

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