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

Pirc, 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 Pirc surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Pirc in America

Pirc is the 78040th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Pirc surname appeared 245 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 Pirc.

We can also compare 2010 data for Pirc 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 Pirc

The surname PIRC is of Slovene origin and can be traced back to the 16th century in the region of present-day Slovenia. It is derived from the Slovene word "pirc," which means "brewster" or "brewer." The name likely originated as an occupational surname for someone who brewed beer or ale.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the PIRC surname is found in the Slovenian Cadastral Records from the late 16th century, where a certain Janez Pirc is mentioned as a landowner in the village of Dolenja vas near Ljubljana.

In the 17th century, the PIRC name appears in various church records and parish registers in the regions of Carniola (now central Slovenia) and Styria (now eastern Slovenia). A notable bearer of this name from this period was Gregor Pirc (c. 1615-1683), a prominent Slovene Catholic priest and theologian.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, the PIRC surname spread to other parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, including present-day Austria, Croatia, and northern Italy, as people migrated for economic or political reasons. One well-known figure from this time was Jakob Pirc (1792-1857), a Slovene mathematician and military engineer who served in the Austrian Empire.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some PIRC family members emigrated to other parts of Europe and even to the Americas, seeking better opportunities. Franc Pirc (1858-1932), for instance, was a Slovene-American inventor and engineer who obtained several patents in the United States.

Another notable bearer of the PIRC surname was Vasja Pirc (1907-1980), a renowned Slovenian chess player and theoretician who is best known for developing the Pirc Defense, a popular opening system in chess.

Lastly, Jože Pirc (1927-2006) was a prominent Slovene lawyer and politician who served as the first President of the Constitutional Court of Slovenia after the country gained independence in 1991.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Pirc

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

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

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