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

McGehee, 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 McGehee surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of McGehee in America

McGehee is the 5984th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The McGehee surname appeared 5,749 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 McGehee.

We can also compare 2010 data for McGehee 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 McGehee

The surname McGehee has its origins in Ireland and dates back to the 12th century. It is an Anglicized form of the Gaelic name "Mag Aodha," meaning "son of Aodh" or "son of Hugh." The name Aodh was a popular given name among the Irish during the Middle Ages and was derived from the Old Irish word "áed," meaning "fire."

The earliest recorded instances of the name McGehee can be found in ancient Irish manuscripts and records from the 13th and 14th centuries. One notable example is the Annals of the Four Masters, a chronicle of medieval Irish history compiled in the 17th century, which mentions several individuals with the surname McGehee or its variations, such as MacAodha and MacCaoide.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, many Irish families bearing the surname McGehee were forced to migrate to other parts of the British Isles and the Americas due to the English colonization of Ireland and the subsequent upheavals and conflicts. Some of the earliest recorded instances of the name in America can be found in colonial records from the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

One of the earliest known individuals with the surname McGehee was Seán Mag Aodha, a 16th-century Irish poet and historian from County Donegal. Another notable figure was Aodh Mag Aodha, a 17th-century Irish chieftain and member of the O'Neill clan, who played a prominent role in the Irish Confederate Wars of the 1640s.

In the 18th century, Edward McGehee (1736-1819) was a prominent American planter and landowner from Virginia, who later settled in Mississippi and established a successful cotton plantation. His descendants became influential figures in the American South.

Another notable individual was John McGehee (1782-1830), an American politician and lawyer from Virginia, who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1817 to 1819.

In the 19th century, Montfort McGehee (1884-1951) was an American mathematician and educator who made significant contributions to the field of vector analysis. He served as the president of the American Mathematical Society from 1943 to 1944.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name McGehee

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

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

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

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