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

Oertel, 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 Oertel surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Oertel in America

Oertel is the 24064th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Oertel surname appeared 1,047 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 Oertel.

We can also compare 2010 data for Oertel 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 Oertel

The surname Oertel is of German origin, derived from the personal name Ortwin or Ortolph. It is believed to have originated in the 11th or 12th century in the regions of central and southern Germany.

The name Oertel is thought to be a variant spelling of the German surname Ort or Ortel, which comes from the Old High German word "orta," meaning "point" or "edge." This suggests that the name may have been originally given to someone who lived near a prominent geographical feature or boundary.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Oertel can be found in the Codex Diplomaticus Saxoniae Regiae, a collection of historical documents from the medieval Kingdom of Saxony, where it appears as "Ortil" in the 12th century.

In the 16th century, the name Oertel is mentioned in the records of the University of Wittenberg, where several students and scholars with this surname were enrolled or taught.

One notable individual with the surname Oertel was Johann Philipp Oertel (1698-1757), a German jurist and professor of law at the University of Leipzig. Another was Johann Gottfried Oertel (1744-1826), a German theologian and writer who served as a pastor in various towns in Saxony.

In the 19th century, Carl August Oertel (1811-1882) was a prominent German architect and urban planner who designed several notable buildings in Leipzig and other cities.

Another individual of note was Max Oertel (1835-1897), a German physician and medical writer who specialized in the treatment of respiratory diseases and developed the "Oertel System" for the treatment of obesity and heart disease.

The surname Oertel has also been found in historical records from other German-speaking regions, such as Austria and Switzerland, as well as in areas where German immigrants settled, particularly in the United States and Canada.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Oertel

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

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

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

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