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

Heckman, 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 Heckman surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Heckman in America

Heckman is the 3668th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Heckman surname appeared 9,709 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 3 people would have the surname Heckman.

We can also compare 2010 data for Heckman 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 Heckman

The surname Heckman originated in Germany, specifically in the region of Hesse. It dates back to the Middle Ages, around the 13th to 14th centuries. The name is derived from the German word "Hecke," which means "hedge" or "fence," suggesting that the original bearer of the name may have lived near or worked with hedges or fences.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Heckman can be found in the Codex Diplomaticus Anhaltinus, a collection of historical documents from the Anhalt region, where a person named Johannes Heckman is mentioned in the year 1387. Another early reference is in the Kirchenbücher von Hessen (Church Records of Hesse), where a Hans Heckman is listed in the town of Herborn in 1472.

The Heckman surname is also associated with several place names in Germany, such as Heckmünden and Hecklingen, which may have influenced the spelling and variants of the name over time. Variations of the name include Heckmann, Heckmair, and Heckmeyer.

Notable individuals with the Heckman surname throughout history include Johann Heckman (1518-1590), a German Protestant reformer and theologian; Johann Heckman (1572-1639), a German lawyer and legal scholar; Johann Heckman (1673-1731), a German composer and organist; and Gustav Heckman (1824-1906), a German-American entrepreneur and businessman who established the Heckman Brewing Company in New York.

Another remarkable figure is Ewald Heckman (1921-2005), a German-born American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate in Physics, who made significant contributions to the development of particle accelerators and particle physics. His groundbreaking work laid the foundation for modern particle accelerators used in scientific research and medical applications.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Heckman

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

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

If you have a correction or suggestion to improve the history of Heckman, 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!