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

Lancaster, 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 Lancaster surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Lancaster in America

Lancaster is the 1080th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Lancaster surname appeared 32,362 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 11 people would have the surname Lancaster.

We can also compare 2010 data for Lancaster 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 Lancaster

The surname Lancaster originates from the county of Lancashire in North West England. It is an Old English surname derived from the combination of the words "lanca" meaning "ridge" or "hillside" and "ceaster" meaning "Roman town or camp". The name refers to the ancient Roman settlement of Longovicum, which became modern-day Lancaster.

The earliest recorded spelling of the name appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Loncastre". Other early spellings include Lancastre, Loncastre, and Loncastreshire. The first known bearer of the surname was Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria, who was recorded as "Gospatric de Lancastre" in the 12th century.

The House of Lancaster was a royal house of English nobility that played a significant role in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars fought between the Houses of Lancaster and York over the English throne from 1455 to 1487. Notable members of the House of Lancaster include King Henry IV (1367-1413), who seized the throne in 1399, and his son King Henry V (1386-1422), the victor of the Battle of Agincourt.

Other notable historical figures with the surname Lancaster include John of Lancaster (1389-1435), 1st Duke of Bedford and regent of France during the Hundred Years' War; Sir James Lancaster (c.1554-1618), an English navigator and explorer who led expeditions to the East Indies; and Edward Gavin Lancaster (1838-1915), a British artist and painter.

In the United States, the surname Lancaster can be traced back to early settlers of British descent. One of the earliest recorded bearers was Daniel Lancaster (c.1660-1736), a Quaker from Lancashire, England, who settled in Pennsylvania in the late 17th century. Another notable American with the surname was Joseph Lancaster (1778-1838), an educator and pioneer of the monitorial system of education.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Lancaster

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

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

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