Explore the Family Name Ferriter

The meaning of Ferriter

1. Irish: from Feirtéir, from Middle English fereter ‘ferreter’, for someone who hunts with ferrets, using them to drive rabbits from their burrows. This name has been in Ireland (County Kerry) since the 13th century. Compare Ferrett. 2. Possibly an Americanized form of German Vorreiter, an occupational name for someone who rides ahead, Middle High German, Middle Low German vorrīter, from vor ‘before, ahead’ + rīter ‘rider’.

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

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

Based on the Decennial U.S. Census, the surname Ferriter has seen a slight decrease in popularity from 2000 to 2010. In 2000, it ranked 40,083 but slightly dropped by 1.31% to 40,610 in 2010. However, the actual count of people with this surname increased by 4.47% from 515 individuals in 2000 to 538 in 2010. The proportion per 100,000 of the population also experienced a small drop of 5.26%, from 0.19 in 2000 to 0.18 in 2010.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#40,083	#40,610	-1.31%
Count	515	538	4.47%
Proportion per 100k	0.19	0.18	-5.26%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Ferriter

When looking at ethnic identity, the Decennial U.S. Census data reveals that the majority of the individuals with the Ferriter surname identify as White, making up 98.06% in 2000 and decreasing slightly to 97.03% in 2010. There was a noticeable increase in those identifying as two or more races, rising by 15.46% from 0.97% in 2000 to 1.12% in 2010. There also seems to be a new addition in 2010 of individuals identifying as Hispanic at 1.30%. Asian/Pacific Islander, Black, and American Indian and Alaskan Native categories remained constant at 0% for both years.

	2000	2010	Change
White	98.06%	97.03%	-1.05%
Hispanic	0%	1.3%	0%
Two or More Races	0.97%	1.12%	15.46%
Asian/Pacific Islander	0%	0%	0%
Black	0%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%