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

Ehrenreich, 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 Ehrenreich surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Ehrenreich in America

Ehrenreich is the 37492nd most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Ehrenreich surname appeared 594 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 0 people would have the surname Ehrenreich.

We can also compare 2010 data for Ehrenreich 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 Ehrenreich

The surname Ehrenreich is of German origin, derived from the German words "Ehre" meaning honor and "Reich" meaning rich or powerful. It likely emerged in the late medieval period, around the 13th or 14th century, as a descriptive surname referring to someone of high status or nobility.

The name was initially concentrated in southern Germany, particularly in regions like Bavaria and Swabia, where many noble families and knights resided. It may have originated as a nickname or title bestowed upon individuals of distinguished character or those who held positions of authority.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the Ehrenreich surname can be found in the Codex Diplomaticus Saxoniae, a collection of historical documents from the region of Saxony, which mentions an individual named Conradus Ehrenreich in the year 1412.

In the 16th century, the Ehrenreich family was documented in the town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a well-preserved medieval town in Bavaria. Johannes Ehrenreich (1528-1592) was a prominent Lutheran theologian and reformer who served as a pastor in Rothenburg and wrote several influential works on theology.

The name also appears in historical records from Austria, such as the Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv (Vienna City and State Archives), which contains references to individuals with the Ehrenreich surname in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Notable individuals with the Ehrenreich surname include:

1. Georg Ehrenreich (1855-1932), an Austrian writer and journalist known for his novels and short stories depicting rural life in the Salzkammergut region of Austria.

2. Barbara Ehrenreich (born 1941), an American author and political activist, best known for her books "Nickel and Dimed" and "Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America."

3. Paul Ehrenreich (1884-1949), a German-American lawyer and politician who served as the Attorney General of New York from 1925 to 1926.

4. Christian Ehrenreich (1788-1866), a German mathematician and philosopher who made contributions to the field of non-Euclidean geometry.

5. Heinrich Ehrenreich (1928-2011), a German artist and painter known for his abstract expressionist works and his involvement in the avant-garde art movement in post-war Germany.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Ehrenreich

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

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

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

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