Plan last name popularity, history, and meaning

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

Meaning of Plan

A surname derived from the French word meaning "plain" or "level ground."

Plan, 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 Plan surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Plan in America

Plan is the 92358th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Plan surname appeared 199 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 Plan.

We can also compare 2010 data for Plan 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 92358 86992 5.98%
Count 199 199 0.00%
Proportion per 100k 0.07 0.07 0.00%

The history of the last name Plan

The surname PLAN is believed to have originated in France during the medieval period. It is thought to be derived from the Old French word "plaine," meaning a flat or level area of land, often referring to a plain or meadow. This suggests that the name may have initially been used as a descriptive surname for someone who lived near or worked on a plain or open field.

The earliest recorded instances of the PLAN surname can be traced back to the 12th century in various regions of France, including Normandy, Brittany, and the Ile-de-France region around Paris. In some historical documents, the name is also spelled as "Plaine" or "Plene," reflecting the variations in spelling that were common during that era.

One of the earliest known references to the PLAN surname can be found in the Cartulaire de Redon, a collection of medieval charters and documents from the Abbey of Redon in Brittany, which mentions a certain "Guillelmus Planus" (William PLAN) in the year 1182.

In the 13th century, there are records of a nobleman named Guichard PLAN, who was a vassal of the Count of Champagne and held lands near the village of Plancy-l'Abbaye in the Aube region of northeastern France.

During the late Middle Ages and Renaissance period, the PLAN surname began to spread beyond France to other parts of Europe. Notable individuals with this surname include:

  1. Antoine PLAN (c. 1520-1589), a French Protestant lawyer and humanist scholar from Lyon.
  2. Pieter van der Plancken (c. 1590-1647), a Flemish painter and architect active in Antwerp.
  3. Johann Andreas Planer (1724-1789), a German botanist and physician from Erfurt.
  4. Johann Jacob PLAN (1735-1788), a German author and translator from Nuremberg.
  5. Jean-Baptiste PLAN (1778-1857), a French politician and lawyer who served as a deputy in the French National Assembly.

As the PLAN surname spread across Europe, it also developed various localized spellings and variations, such as Planer, Planer, and Planert in German-speaking regions, and Planque or Plancke in the Low Countries.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Plan

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

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 Plan was:

Race/Ethnicity Percentage Total Occurrences
Non-Hispanic White Only 67.34% 134
Non-Hispanic Black Only (S)% (S)
Non-Hispanic Asian and Pacific Islander Only 30.15% 60
Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaskan Native 0.00% 0
Non-Hispanic of Two or More Races (S)% (S)
Hispanic Origin 0.00% 0

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

2010 2000 Change (%)
White 67.34% 68.34% -1.47%
Black (S)% 3.02% (S)%
Asian and Pacific Islander 30.15% 25.63% 16.21%
American Indian and Alaskan Native 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
Two or More Races (S)% (S)% (S)%
Hispanic 0.00% (S)% (S)%

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

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

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"Plan last name popularity, history, and meaning". NameCensus.com. Accessed on August 7, 2025. http://namecensus.com/last-names/plan-surname-popularity/.

"Plan last name popularity, history, and meaning". NameCensus.com, http://namecensus.com/last-names/plan-surname-popularity/. Accessed 7 August, 2025

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

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