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

Lanphear, 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 Lanphear surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Lanphear in America

Lanphear is the 20037th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Lanphear surname appeared 1,335 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 Lanphear.

We can also compare 2010 data for Lanphear 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 Lanphear

The surname Lanphear is of English origin, deriving from the old Anglo-Saxon words "land" meaning land or estate, and "hæra" meaning army or warrior. This suggests the name originally referred to a soldier or landowner. The earliest recorded spelling variations of the name include Lanfere, Landphair, and Landfere, found in historical records from the 13th century onwards.

One of the earliest recorded bearers of the name was Sir William Lanfere, a knight from Essex, England, who fought in the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The Landfere family were landowners in Essex and Suffolk during the Middle Ages, with records showing they held estates granted by King Edward I in the late 13th century.

The Lanphear name appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, a historical record of land ownership and taxation commissioned by William the Conqueror. This suggests the name was well-established in England before the Norman Conquest.

In the 16th century, the spelling Lanphear became more common, with records showing John Lanphear born in 1542 in Gloucestershire, England. Thomas Lanphear, born in 1612 in Somerset, was one of the earliest bearers of the name to emigrate to America, settling in Massachusetts in 1635.

Other notable individuals with the Lanphear surname include Reverend Nathaniel Lanphear (1698-1770), a Congregationalist minister in Connecticut, and John Lanphear (1796-1865), a prominent businessman and politician who served as Mayor of Syracuse, New York in the 1850s. Mary Lanphear (1839-1923) was a pioneering nurse and philanthropist who helped establish hospitals in New York City.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Lanphear

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

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

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

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