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

Welty, 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 Welty surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Welty in America

Welty is the 6894th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Welty surname appeared 4,876 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 2 people would have the surname Welty.

We can also compare 2010 data for Welty 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 Welty

The surname Welty is of German origin and is believed to have originated in the 14th century. It is derived from the Middle High German word "walt," meaning "forest" or "woods," and likely referred to someone who lived near or in a forest.

The earliest known record of the name Welty dates back to the year 1363, when a person named Hans Welty was mentioned in a document from the town of Wertheim, located in the present-day state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. This suggests that the name was initially concentrated in this region.

In the 15th century, the Welty surname appeared in various records across German-speaking areas, including Switzerland and Austria. One notable example is Johannes Welty, a scholar and theologian who lived from 1435 to 1511 and served as a professor at the University of Heidelberg.

As people migrated from German-speaking regions to other parts of Europe and eventually to the Americas, the Welty surname spread to different countries. In the 17th century, the name was found in areas such as the Netherlands and France, with variations in spelling such as Weltie and Veltie.

One of the earliest known instances of the Welty surname in America dates back to the late 18th century, when a German immigrant named Johann Welty settled in Pennsylvania. His descendants subsequently spread across various states, including Ohio and Indiana.

Among the notable individuals who bore the Welty surname throughout history are Eudora Welty (1909-2001), an American author and Pulitzer Prize winner known for her short stories and novels set in the American South. Another famous Welty was Paul Welty (1923-2001), an American artist and sculptor known for his abstract expressionist works.

Other individuals with the Welty surname include Johann Welty (1805-1868), a Swiss politician and statesman who served as the President of the Swiss Confederation in 1867, and Wilhelm Welty (1826-1910), a German architect and urban planner who contributed to the design of several cities in Germany and Switzerland.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Welty

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

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

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