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

Ostrander, 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 Ostrander surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Ostrander in America

Ostrander is the 3722nd most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Ostrander surname appeared 9,518 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 3 people would have the surname Ostrander.

We can also compare 2010 data for Ostrander 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 Ostrander

The surname Ostrander is of Dutch origin, derived from the Ostrand region in the Netherlands. It emerged in the late 16th century as a locational surname, indicating someone who hailed from Ostrand. The name likely evolved from the Dutch words "oost" meaning east and "rand" meaning edge or border, suggesting the surname described someone residing on the eastern edge or border of a particular area.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the Ostrander surname can be found in the Dutch Reformed Church records of New Amsterdam (present-day New York City) in the 1640s. This suggests that some of the earliest bearers of the name emigrated from the Netherlands to the Dutch colonial settlements in North America.

In the late 17th century, the Ostrander surname appeared in various documents and records throughout the Dutch colonial regions of New York and New Jersey. Pieter Ostrander, born around 1665, is noted as one of the earliest known individuals with this surname in the American colonies.

During the 18th century, the Ostrander family continued to spread across the northeastern United States. Notable individuals from this period include John Ostrander, a Revolutionary War soldier who fought in the Battle of Monmouth in 1778, and Cornelius Ostrander, a farmer and landowner in New York's Hudson Valley in the late 1700s.

In the 19th century, the Ostrander surname gained prominence with individuals such as William W. Ostrander, a lawyer and politician who served as a member of the New York State Assembly in the 1840s, and Henry Ostrander, a Civil War veteran who fought for the Union Army and later became a prominent businessman in Illinois.

Other notable Ostranders throughout history include Gilman Ostrander, an American artist and illustrator active in the early 20th century, and John Ostrander, a renowned comic book writer known for his work on titles like Suicide Squad and The Spectre in the late 20th century.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Ostrander

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

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

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

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