Mouton last name popularity, history, and meaning

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

Meaning of Mouton

A French occupational surname referring to a shepherd or a person who tended sheep.

Mouton, 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 Mouton surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Mouton in America

Mouton is the 5329th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Mouton surname appeared 6,535 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 Mouton.

We can also compare 2010 data for Mouton 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.

2010 2000 Change (%)
Rank 5329 5335 -0.11%
Count 6,535 6,015 8.29%
Proportion per 100k 2.22 2.23 -0.45%

The history of the last name Mouton

The surname Mouton is of French origin, derived from the Old French word "moton," meaning "sheep" or "mutton." This name likely originated as a descriptive surname given to someone who worked with sheep, such as a shepherd or a dealer in wool or mutton.

The earliest recorded instances of the name Mouton can be traced back to the 13th century in various regions of France, particularly in the northern and central parts of the country. In medieval records, the name appeared in various spellings, including Mouton, Moutton, and Monton, reflecting the regional variations in pronunciation and spelling conventions of the time.

One of the earliest documented references to the name Mouton can be found in the records of the Abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris, where a certain Pierre Mouton is mentioned in a charter dated 1247. Another notable early bearer of the name was Gilles Mouton, a wool merchant from Provins, a town renowned for its wool trade, who is recorded in tax records from the late 13th century.

During the Middle Ages, the Mouton family established itself as a prominent family in the region of Normandy. In the 14th century, a Jean Mouton (c. 1310-1370) was a prominent landowner and knight who fought in the Hundred Years' War. His descendant, Guillaume Mouton (c. 1460-1522), was a renowned composer and master of the chapel royal during the reigns of Louis XII and Francis I.

Another notable individual with the surname Mouton was Gabriel Mouton (1618-1694), a French mathematician and astronomer who made significant contributions to the study of longitude and contributed to the development of the metric system. He was a member of the French Academy of Sciences and served as the royal hydrographer.

In the 19th century, Paul Mouton (1801-1873) was a French inventor and engineer who patented various improvements in the manufacture of glass and was instrumental in the development of the modern glass industry in France.

The Mouton name has also been associated with several notable winemakers and vineyards in the Bordeaux region of France. One of the most famous is the Château Mouton Rothschild, a premier cru estate established in the 16th century and acquired by the Rothschild family in the 19th century.

While the Mouton surname is most commonly associated with France, it has also spread to other parts of the world through emigration, particularly to former French colonies and territories. However, its roots can be traced back to the Old French word for "sheep," reflecting the occupational origins of this distinctive surname.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Mouton

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

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 Mouton was:

Race/Ethnicity Percentage Total Occurrences
Non-Hispanic White Only 45.97% 3,004
Non-Hispanic Black Only 47.62% 3,112
Non-Hispanic Asian and Pacific Islander Only 0.50% 33
Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaskan Native 0.15% 10
Non-Hispanic of Two or More Races 2.77% 181
Hispanic Origin 2.98% 195

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 Mouton has changed in the 10 years between the two census surveys.

2010 2000 Change (%)
White 45.97% 47.08% -2.39%
Black 47.62% 48.71% -2.26%
Asian and Pacific Islander 0.50% (S)% (S)%
American Indian and Alaskan Native 0.15% (S)% (S)%
Two or More Races 2.77% 1.83% 40.87%
Hispanic 2.98% 1.93% 42.77%

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

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

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"Mouton last name popularity, history, and meaning". NameCensus.com. Accessed on October 9, 2024. http://namecensus.com/last-names/mouton-surname-popularity/.

"Mouton last name popularity, history, and meaning". NameCensus.com, http://namecensus.com/last-names/mouton-surname-popularity/. Accessed 9 October, 2024

Mouton last name popularity, history, and meaning. NameCensus.com. Retrieved from http://namecensus.com/last-names/mouton-surname-popularity/.

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