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

Karp, 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 Karp surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Karp in America

Karp is the 6143rd most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Karp surname appeared 5,577 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 Karp.

We can also compare 2010 data for Karp 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 Karp

The surname KARP is of Polish origin, derived from the Slavic word "karp," which means "carp," a type of freshwater fish. This name likely originated as a descriptive surname in the Middle Ages, referring to someone who caught or sold carp.

The earliest recorded instances of the KARP surname can be traced back to the 15th century in Poland. It was common in the regions of Silesia and Greater Poland, particularly in the cities of Wroclaw, Poznan, and Krakow.

In the 16th century, the name KARP appears in several historical records, including the Metryka Koronna, a collection of documents from the Polish Crown Chancellery. One notable individual from this time was Jan Karp, a prominent merchant and landowner who lived in Krakow in the late 1500s.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the KARP surname spread across Central and Eastern Europe, as Polish immigrants settled in neighboring regions. In Russia, the name was sometimes spelled as "Karpov," and in Germany, it took the form "Karpf."

One of the earliest known bearers of the KARP surname in Germany was Johann Karpf, a Lutheran pastor who lived in Nuremberg in the late 17th century (1645-1711). In the 18th century, Ignacy Karp (1715-1784) was a Polish philosopher and mathematician known for his contributions to the field of logic.

As the KARP surname spread across Europe, it also found its way to other parts of the world through immigration. In the United States, one of the earliest recorded individuals with this name was Stanislaw Karp, a Polish immigrant who settled in Chicago in the late 19th century (1850-1921).

Another notable figure was Yosef Karp (1892-1962), a Russian-born Israeli chess player and composer who was one of the leading players in the early years of the Israeli chess scene. More recently, Richard Karp (born 1935) is an American computer scientist and mathematician, known for his contributions to the field of computational complexity theory.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Karp

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

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

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

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