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

Shapiro, 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 Shapiro surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Shapiro in America

Shapiro is the 1469th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Shapiro surname appeared 24,335 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 8 people would have the surname Shapiro.

We can also compare 2010 data for Shapiro 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 Shapiro

The surname Shapiro is a Jewish name that originated in Germany and Eastern Europe. It is derived from the German and Yiddish word "shap," meaning "to draw water," and the suffix "-er," implying an occupation. Therefore, the name likely referred to someone who drew water from a well or a river for their community.

The earliest recorded instances of the name can be traced back to the 17th century in Germany and Poland. One notable early bearer of the name was Rabbi Shalom Shachna Shapiro, a renowned Talmudic scholar born in 1589 in Lublin, Poland. He was a student of the famous Rabbi Joel Sirkis and wrote several influential works on Jewish law.

In the 18th century, the name appeared in various records across Eastern Europe, including the 1784 census of the town of Pinsk (now in Belarus), which listed several families with the surname Shapiro.

As Jews migrated westward during the 19th and early 20th centuries, the name spread to other parts of Europe and the Americas. One notable bearer of the name was Sir Muir Shapiro (1838-1919), a British lawyer and judge who served as the Lord Justice of Appeal and was knighted in 1901.

In the United States, the name became more prominent with the influx of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some famous Americans with the surname include:

1. Howard Shapiro (1912-2001), a Tony Award-winning theater producer and director.
2. Isaac Leeser Shapiro (1916-2008), a renowned physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and later became a professor at Harvard University.
3. Dory Schary (born Isador Schary Shapiro, 1905-1980), a celebrated film director, producer, and screenwriter who won several Academy Awards.
4. Carl Shapiro (born 1955), an economist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, known for his work on antitrust and competition policy.
5. Mikhail Shapiro (born 1986), a Russian-American bioengineer and professor at the California Institute of Technology, known for his pioneering work in biomolecular imaging and nanomedicine.

While the name Shapiro is most commonly associated with the Jewish diaspora, it has also been adopted by non-Jewish individuals in various parts of the world, reflecting the diversity and cultural exchange that has shaped the evolution of surnames.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Shapiro

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

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

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

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