Explore the Family Name Brailsford

The meaning of Brailsford

English (East Midlands and Yorkshire): habitational name from a place in Derbyshire named Brailsford, possibly from an Old English word brægels, a metathesized form of bærgels, itself a byform of byrgels ‘tumulus, barrow’, + ford ‘ford’.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.

How common is the last name Brailsford in the United States?

Based on the Decennial U.S. Census, the popularity of the surname Brailsford has seen a substantial increase between 2000 and 2010. In 2000, the surname ranked 24,386 in the U.S., but by 2010, it had climbed to 23,205—a rise of nearly 5%. In terms of raw numbers, there were 962 individuals with the surname Brailsford in 2000, and this figure grew to 1,099 by 2010, marking a significant increase of over 14%. In proportion, per 100,000 people, the presence of this surname rose by 2.78%.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#24,386	#23,205	4.84%
Count	962	1,099	14.24%
Proportion per 100k	0.36	0.37	2.78%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Brailsford

Turning to the question of ethnicity, data from the Decennial U.S. Census shows some shifts over the same decade. Among those bearing the surname Brailsford, the percentage identifying as Black increased from 47.92% in 2000 to 51.50% in 2010, showing a rise of 7.47%. The White segment decreased slightly from 47.92% to 44.49%, while the proportion of those reporting two or more races increased notably by 31.33%—from 1.66% to 2.18%. Over the same period, the Hispanic segment saw a decrease of -21.72%. It's worth noting that the share of Asian/Pacific Islander and American Indian and Alaskan Native remained unchanged with 0% reported in both 2000 and 2010, likely due to suppressed data for privacy reasons.

	2000	2010	Change
Black	47.92%	51.5%	7.47%
White	47.92%	44.49%	-7.16%
Two or More Races	1.66%	2.18%	31.33%
Hispanic	1.98%	1.55%	-21.72%
Asian/Pacific Islander	0.52%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%