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

Shimizu, 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 Shimizu surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Shimizu in America

Shimizu is the 11960th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Shimizu surname appeared 2,613 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 Shimizu.

We can also compare 2010 data for Shimizu 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 Shimizu

The surname "SHIMIZU" is of Japanese origin, deriving from the Japanese language. It is believed to have originated in the 8th century AD, during the Nara period of Japanese history.

The name is composed of two Kanji characters – "shimi" meaning "pure" or "clear", and "zu" meaning "stream" or "river". Therefore, the literal translation of the name is "clear stream" or "pure water". This suggests that the name may have been originally given to someone who lived near a clear, flowing stream or river.

In medieval Japanese records, the earliest known mention of the surname Shimizu dates back to the 13th century. A document from 1274 AD refers to a samurai warrior named Shimizu Katsumoto, who fought in the Battle of Bun'ei against the Mongol invasion of Japan.

During the Edo period (1603-1868), the Shimizu name was particularly prominent in the Shizuoka Prefecture of central Japan. Several notable figures from this region bore the Shimizu surname, including Shimizu Masayoshi (1738-1801), a renowned Confucian scholar and educator.

In more recent history, the Shimizu name has been associated with several influential individuals. Shimizu Kan (1823-1892) was a pioneering teacher and advocate for girls' education in the late Edo and early Meiji periods. Shimizu Usaburo (1877-1948) was a celebrated artist and woodblock print maker, renowned for his landscape and genre scenes.

Another notable figure was Shimizu Hiroshi (1903-1966), a prominent architect who designed several iconic buildings in Tokyo, including the Tokyo Kaikan and the former Tokyo Opera City. His firm, Shimizu Corporation, is now one of Japan's largest construction companies.

The Shimizu surname has also been carried by individuals of note in other fields, such as Shimizu Reiko (1920-1938), a celebrated author and poet, and Shimizu Kunio (1936-1976), a renowned photographer known for his evocative portraits and landscapes.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Shimizu

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

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

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

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