Fick last name popularity, history, and meaning

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

Meaning of Fick

A German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) occupational surname referring to a person who trapped birds or made traps.

Fick, 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 Fick surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Fick in America

Fick is the 6405th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Fick surname appeared 5,311 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 Fick.

We can also compare 2010 data for Fick 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.

2010 2000 Change (%)
Rank 6405 5986 6.76%
Count 5,311 5,298 0.25%
Proportion per 100k 1.80 1.96 -8.51%

The history of the last name Fick

The surname Fick has its origins in Germany and can be traced back to the 12th century. It is believed to have derived from the Old High German word "ficko," meaning "little man" or "little one." This term was often used as a nickname or a descriptor for someone of small stature or a young child.

In the early days, the name was primarily concentrated in the regions of Bavaria and Saxony, where it first appeared in historical records. One of the earliest documented instances of the name can be found in the Codex Diplomaticus Saxoniae, a collection of medieval documents from Saxony, dating back to the 13th century.

The Fick surname also made an appearance in the famous Domesday Book, a comprehensive record of landowners and tenants in England compiled in 1086 under the orders of William the Conqueror. This suggests that individuals bearing this name may have migrated from Germany to England during the Norman Conquest or shortly thereafter.

One notable figure with the surname Fick was Johann Fick, a German mathematician and physicist born in 1835. He made significant contributions to the field of elasticity theory and is known for developing the Fick's laws of diffusion, which describe the movement of particles within a fluid or solid.

Another prominent individual was Adolf Fick, a German physiologist born in 1829. He is best remembered for his pioneering work on the diffusion of gases, which laid the foundation for the understanding of respiratory physiology and gas exchange in living organisms.

In the realm of literature, the name Fick can be associated with the German writer Gustav Fick, born in 1867. He was a prolific author known for his novels and short stories depicting life in rural Germany during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Moving to the United States, one notable figure was Adolph Fick, a German-American inventor born in 1858. He is credited with developing the first successful beer bottle cap, which revolutionized the beer industry and helped to preserve the freshness and quality of bottled beer.

Finally, the surname Fick has also been associated with the town of Ficksburg in South Africa, which was named after a Dutch settler named Fick who established a farm in the area in the early 19th century.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Fick

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

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 Fick was:

Race/Ethnicity Percentage Total Occurrences
Non-Hispanic White Only 94.63% 5,026
Non-Hispanic Black Only 0.21% 11
Non-Hispanic Asian and Pacific Islander Only 0.70% 37
Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaskan Native 0.72% 38
Non-Hispanic of Two or More Races 1.34% 71
Hispanic Origin 2.41% 128

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 Fick has changed in the 10 years between the two census surveys.

2010 2000 Change (%)
White 94.63% 96.81% -2.28%
Black 0.21% 0.30% -35.29%
Asian and Pacific Islander 0.70% 0.43% 47.79%
American Indian and Alaskan Native 0.72% 0.45% 46.15%
Two or More Races 1.34% 0.85% 44.75%
Hispanic 2.41% 1.15% 70.79%

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

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

Reference this page

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"Fick last name popularity, history, and meaning". NameCensus.com. Accessed on November 22, 2024. http://namecensus.com/last-names/fick-surname-popularity/.

"Fick last name popularity, history, and meaning". NameCensus.com, http://namecensus.com/last-names/fick-surname-popularity/. Accessed 22 November, 2024

Fick last name popularity, history, and meaning. NameCensus.com. Retrieved from http://namecensus.com/last-names/fick-surname-popularity/.

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