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

Russian, 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 Russian surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Russian in America

Russian is the 36970th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Russian surname appeared 604 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 Russian.

We can also compare 2010 data for Russian 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 Russian

The surname Russian is an ethnic name derived from the demonym "Russian," which refers to people or things originating from Russia. It likely emerged as a descriptive surname during the Middle Ages, when surnames were adopted to distinguish individuals from others with the same given name.

The name's origins can be traced back to the Rus' people, an East Slavic ethnic group that formed the medieval nation of Kievan Rus' in the 9th century. The Rus' were based around the cities of Novgorod and Kiev, which later became part of modern-day Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Russian can be found in the Domesday Book of 1086, which lists a person named Russianus in the county of Somerset, England. This suggests that the name had already spread beyond the boundaries of Eastern Europe by the 11th century.

In the 13th century, a prominent figure named Fyodor Rusyn (also spelled Rusin or Ruszyn) was a boyar (nobleman) in the court of Prince Daniel of Galicia-Volhynia, a medieval state located in present-day western Ukraine and eastern Poland.

During the 15th century, the name appeared in various spellings, such as Russien, Russyn, and Rusin, reflecting the linguistic diversity of the regions where it was used. One notable bearer was Ivan Rusyn (c. 1430-1508), a Ruthenian (Ukrainian) Orthodox metropolitan bishop of Kiev and Galicia.

In the 16th century, the name was recorded in England as Rushen, as evidenced by the christening of William Rushen in 1596 in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft, London.

Other notable individuals with the surname Russian or its variants include:

1. Andrei Rusyn (c. 1550-1625), a Ruthenian Orthodox priest and writer from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
2. Yuri Rusyn (1659-1708), a Cossack leader and colonel in the Zaporozhian Army during the Khmelnytsky Uprising in Ukraine.
3. Nikolai Rusyn (1754-1825), a Russian Orthodox archpriest and educator who served as the rector of the Moscow Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy.
4. Mikhail Rusyn (1837-1907), a Russian military officer and general who fought in the Crimean War and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878.
5. Fedir Rusyn (1890-1962), a Ukrainian painter and art teacher known for his landscapes and still-life paintings.

While the name Russian has its roots in Eastern Europe, it has since spread to various parts of the world through migration and cultural exchange, reflecting the diverse histories and movements of people bearing this surname.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Russian

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

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

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

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