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

Wasko, 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 Wasko surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Wasko in America

Wasko is the 16743rd most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Wasko surname appeared 1,708 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 Wasko.

We can also compare 2010 data for Wasko 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 Wasko

The surname Wasko originated in Poland, likely in the late 16th or early 17th century. It is derived from the Polish word "wąski," meaning "narrow" or "slim." This suggests that the name may have initially been a descriptive nickname given to someone with a slender or thin build.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Wasko can be found in the parish records of the village of Zabierzów, near Kraków, where a man named Jan Wasko was listed as a resident in the early 1600s. The surname also appears in some historical documents from the Poznań region in the 17th century.

During the 18th century, the Wasko surname began to spread beyond Poland's borders as families migrated to other parts of Eastern Europe. In the 1790s, a Russian noble named Mikhail Wasko was granted land in present-day Ukraine by Catherine the Great.

In the 19th century, several notable individuals with the surname Wasko emerged. In 1812, a Polish soldier named Stanisław Wasko fought in the Russian campaign of Napoleon's Grande Armée. Decades later, in 1867, a Czech composer named Antonín Wasko was born in Brno, known for his operatic works inspired by Slavic folklore.

As Polish immigrants began to settle in the United States and Canada in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Wasko surname became more widely dispersed. One notable American with this name was Joseph Wasko, a labor activist born in Pennsylvania in 1892 who played a prominent role in the coal miners' strikes of the 1920s.

Other historically significant individuals with the surname Wasko include Kazimierz Wasko, a Polish resistance fighter during World War II who was executed by the Nazis in 1943, and Olga Wasko, a Ukrainian artist born in 1919 who was known for her vibrant paintings depicting the daily life and traditions of her native region.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Wasko

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

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

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