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

Portnoy, 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 Portnoy surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Portnoy in America

Portnoy is the 16004th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Portnoy surname appeared 1,814 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 1 people would have the surname Portnoy.

We can also compare 2010 data for Portnoy 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 Portnoy

The surname Portnoy has its origins in Eastern Europe, specifically in areas that are now part of modern-day Poland, Ukraine, and Russia. It is derived from the Yiddish word "portner," which means "tailor" or "cutter of cloth." This suggests that the earliest bearers of this name likely worked in the tailoring or textile trade.

The name Portnoy can be traced back to the 16th century, when it appeared in various records and manuscripts from the region. One of the earliest known references to the name is found in a tax register from the city of Lublin, Poland, dated 1569, which listed a "Yakov Portner" among the residents.

In the 17th century, the name Portnoy began to appear in other parts of Eastern Europe, including Ukraine and Belarus. One notable early bearer of the name was Shmuel Portnoy, a respected rabbi and scholar who lived in the town of Medzibozh (now in Ukraine) in the mid-1600s.

As the Jewish population dispersed throughout Eastern Europe and beyond, the Portnoy surname spread to other regions. By the 18th century, there were Portnoys living in various parts of the Russian Empire, including modern-day Lithuania and Latvia.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the Portnoy name in the United States can be found in the 1840 census, which listed a Jacob Portnoy living in New York City. This suggests that the name had already begun to establish itself in the New World by the mid-19th century.

Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals with the surname Portnoy. One of the most famous is the American novelist Philip Roth, whose 1969 novel "Portnoy's Complaint" brought the name into the public consciousness. Other notable Portnoys include:

1. Semyon Portnoy (1884-1938), a Russian-born American painter and sculptor.
2. Avrom Portnoy (1887-1973), a Yiddish writer and playwright from Ukraine.
3. Mikhail Portnoy (1916-1990), a Soviet World War II veteran and writer.
4. Alexander Portnoy (1936-2010), a Russian-born American physicist and engineer.
5. Zev Portnoy (born 1940), an Israeli politician and former member of the Knesset.

These examples highlight the rich history and global reach of the Portnoy surname, which has its roots in the tailoring trades of Eastern Europe but has since spread to various corners of the world.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Portnoy

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

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

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