Explore the Family Name Cobban

The meaning of Cobban

Scottish (Aberdeenshire and Banf): from the Old Norse personal name Kolbeinn, which is from kol ‘coal’ + beinn ‘leg, bone’.

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

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

The surname Cobban, according to data from the Decennial U.S. Census, has seen a slight decrease in popularity between 2000 and 2010. In 2000, it was ranked as the 82,344th most popular surname, but by 2010 it had fallen to the 94,311th position, indicating a drop of 14.53%. The number of individuals with this surname also decreased during this period, with a count of 213 in 2000 falling to 194 in 2010, a decrease of 8.92%. Accordingly, the proportion of people named Cobban per 100,000 individuals also fell by 12.5%.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#82,344	#94,311	-14.53%
Count	213	194	-8.92%
Proportion per 100k	0.08	0.07	-12.5%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Cobban

Looking at the ethnic identity associated with the surname Cobban based on the data from the Decennial U.S. Census, we can see some shifts between 2000 and 2010. In 2000, the majority of persons with the surname Cobban, around 87.32%, identified as White, dropping slightly to 86.60% in 2010. Other identities showed changes as well: those identifying as Black increased from 2.82% to 3.09%, while those identifying as Asian/Pacific Islander dropped from 3.29% to zero. There were no individuals identifying as Hispanic in either year. Remarkably, there appears to be an introduction of American Indian and Alaskan Native identity among Cobban bearers, which was not present in 2000 but made up 2.58% of the total in 2010.

	2000	2010	Change
White	87.32%	86.6%	-0.82%
Two or More Races	4.23%	3.61%	-14.66%
Black	2.82%	3.09%	9.57%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	2.58%	0%
Asian/Pacific Islander	3.29%	0%	0%
Hispanic	0%	0%	0%