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

Dietrich, 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 Dietrich surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Dietrich in America

Dietrich is the 2291st most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Dietrich surname appeared 15,904 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 5 people would have the surname Dietrich.

We can also compare 2010 data for Dietrich 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 Dietrich

The surname Dietrich is of German origin, derived from the Germanic personal name Theodoric, which is composed of the elements "theud" meaning "people" and "ric" meaning "ruler" or "power". It is believed to have emerged during the Middle Ages, around the 9th or 10th century.

The name Dietrich was initially concentrated in the southern regions of Germany, particularly in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. It was also prevalent in parts of Switzerland and Austria. The earliest recorded instances of the name can be found in medieval documents and records from these areas.

One of the most notable early references to the name Dietrich is in the Nibelungenlied, a Middle High German epic poem composed around the 13th century. The protagonist, Dietrich von Bern, is a heroic figure based on the historical Theodoric the Great, the king of the Ostrogoths who ruled in the 5th and 6th centuries.

In the 11th century, a German monk named Dietrich von Apolda wrote a treatise on the education of children, which became influential in medieval pedagogy. Another prominent figure was Dietrich von Nieheim, a 14th-century German churchman and historian who wrote extensively about the Great Schism in the Catholic Church.

During the 16th century, the name gained further recognition due to Dietrich of Berne, a legendary German hero and the subject of various folk tales and ballads. Around the same time, Dietrich Buxtehude, a renowned German-Danish organist and composer, was born in 1637 and made significant contributions to the development of the German Baroque style.

In the 19th century, Dietrich Eckart, a German writer and philosopher born in 1868, played a prominent role in the early years of the Nazi Party. On a more positive note, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian born in 1906, became a leading figure in the Confessing Church's resistance against the Nazi regime and was eventually executed for his involvement in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

Throughout history, the name Dietrich has been associated with various places and regions, including Dietrichsdorf, a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, and Dietrich, a city in Idaho, United States, named after the German-American entrepreneur William Dietrich.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Dietrich

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

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

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

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