Heider last name popularity, history, and meaning

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

Meaning of Heider

A German occupational surname referring to someone who clears or cultivates land, derived from the Middle High German word "heiden".

Heider, 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 Heider surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Heider in America

Heider is the 11264th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Heider surname appeared 2,807 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 1 people would have the surname Heider.

We can also compare 2010 data for Heider 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 11264 10692 5.21%
Count 2,807 2,742 2.34%
Proportion per 100k 0.95 1.02 -7.11%

The history of the last name Heider

The surname HEIDER has its origins in Germany, with the earliest records dating back to the 12th century. It is believed to have derived from the German word "heide," meaning "heath" or "uncultivated land." This suggests that the name may have been originally associated with people who lived or worked in heathland areas.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the name HEIDER can be found in the Codex Traditionum Monasterii Sancti Petri Salisburgensis, a 12th-century manuscript from the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter's in Salzburg, Austria. The document mentions a certain "Heiderus de Lonsdorf" in 1172.

In the 13th century, the name HEIDER appears in various German records, often with variations in spelling, such as "Heidere," "Heidher," or "Heidhir." Some of these early mentions include Conradus Heider, a landowner in Thuringia in 1254, and Heinricus Heidher, a burgher in Nuremberg in 1293.

During the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance period, the HEIDER name continued to be present in various regions of Germany. Notable individuals from this time include Johannes Heider (1497-1560), a German Catholic theologian and philosopher, and Christoph Heider (1578-1624), a German composer and organist.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the HEIDER family spread to other parts of Europe, including Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. One notable figure was Georg Heider (1672-1737), a German-Austrian architect who designed several churches and palaces in Vienna and Lower Austria.

As the surname HEIDER continued to evolve, it also gave rise to various place names and toponyms in Germany and Austria, such as Heidersbach, Heidersfeld, and Heiderstetten. Some of these place names may have influenced the spelling or pronunciation of the surname in certain regions.

Other notable individuals with the surname HEIDER include Friedrich Heider (1896-1988), an Austrian-American psychologist and one of the founders of attribution theory, and Walter Heider (1919-2001), an American anthropologist and filmmaker known for his work on the Dani people of New Guinea.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Heider

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

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 Heider was:

Race/Ethnicity Percentage Total Occurrences
Non-Hispanic White Only 94.37% 2,649
Non-Hispanic Black Only 0.50% 14
Non-Hispanic Asian and Pacific Islander Only 1.03% 29
Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaskan Native 0.46% 13
Non-Hispanic of Two or More Races 2.10% 59
Hispanic Origin 1.53% 43

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

2010 2000 Change (%)
White 94.37% 96.10% -1.82%
Black 0.50% 0.40% 22.22%
Asian and Pacific Islander 1.03% 0.62% 49.70%
American Indian and Alaskan Native 0.46% 0.33% 32.91%
Two or More Races 2.10% 1.46% 35.96%
Hispanic 1.53% 1.09% 33.59%

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

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

Reference this page

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

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

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

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