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

Loser, 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 Loser surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Loser in America

Loser is the 35721st most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Loser surname appeared 629 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 Loser.

We can also compare 2010 data for Loser 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 Loser

The surname "LOSER" is believed to have originated in Germany during the medieval period, likely derived from a variation of the German word "loser," meaning "itinerant" or "wanderer." The name may have been initially assigned as a descriptive term for individuals who frequently traveled or relocated.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the name appears in the Nürnberger Polizeibücher (Nuremberg Police Records) from the late 15th century, where a certain Hans Loser was mentioned in connection with a minor altercation in the city. This suggests that the name was already in use among German-speaking communities by that time.

In the 16th century, the name Loser can be found in various municipal records and church registers across southern Germany and Austria. Notable individuals bearing this surname include Johannes Loser (1492-1567), a Catholic theologian and rector of the University of Vienna, and Caspar Loser (1532-1611), a renowned painter from Nuremberg.

As the name spread across central Europe, different regional variations emerged, such as "Losser," "Lossner," and "Löscher." These variants may have arisen due to dialectal differences or transcription errors by scribes.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Loser surname gained a foothold in other parts of Europe, particularly in areas with significant German immigration. For instance, records show a Hans Loser who settled in the Netherlands in the late 1600s, and a Johann Loser who immigrated to Pennsylvania in the early 1700s.

Among the notable individuals with the Loser surname in later centuries were Friedrich Loser (1817-1892), a German-American architect who designed several prominent buildings in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Maximilian Loser (1842-1907), an Austrian painter and etcher known for his landscapes and genre scenes.

It is worth noting that while the surname "LOSER" may have negative connotations in modern English, its origins likely stem from a more neutral descriptor of an individual's lifestyle or occupation, as was common practice in naming conventions during the Middle Ages.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Loser

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

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

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