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

Foresman, 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 Foresman surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Foresman in America

Foresman is the 26795th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Foresman surname appeared 908 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 Foresman.

We can also compare 2010 data for Foresman 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 Foresman

The surname Foresman originated in the Dutch provinces of the Netherlands during the late 16th century. It is derived from the Old Dutch words "fores" meaning forest and "man" meaning a person, thus referring to a person who lived or worked in the forest areas. The earliest known spelling variation was "Foresmanne" which appeared in local municipal records from the town of Dordrecht in 1587.

One of the earliest documented instances of the Foresman name can be found in the baptismal records of the Reformed Dutch Church in Amsterdam, where a child named Pieter Foresman was baptized in 1602. Another early record is from a land deed dated 1619 in the town of Delft, which mentions a Jan Foresman as a property owner.

During the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, the Foresman name appears in various historical documents and records. A notable example is Adriaen Foresman, a wealthy merchant from Rotterdam who was born in 1635 and played a role in the city's prosperous trading guilds.

As the Dutch emigrated to the New World in the 1600s and 1700s, the Foresman name was carried to the American colonies. One of the earliest arrivals was Hendrick Foresman, who settled in New Amsterdam (later New York) in 1648 and is listed in the colony's census records from that year.

In the 19th century, a prominent figure with the Foresman surname was Wilhelm Foresman, a German-born philosopher and writer who lived from 1832 to 1911. His works on ethics and metaphysics were widely read and influential in academic circles of the time.

Other notable individuals throughout history include Johanna Foresman (1790-1865), a Dutch painter known for her landscape and still life works, and Sir Robert Foresman (1820-1892), a British military officer who served in the Crimean War and later became a Member of Parliament.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Foresman

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

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

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

Reference this page

We spend a lot of resources downloading, cleaning, merging, and formatting the data that is shown on the site.

If you found the data or information on this page useful in your research, please use the tool below to properly cite or reference Name Census as the source. We appreciate your support!