Explore the Family Name Hornsey

The meaning of Hornsey

English: habitational name from Hornsea in East Yorkshire, which probably derives its name from Old Norse horn ‘horn; horn-shaped piece of land; projecting piece of land’ + nes ‘headland, promontory’ + sǽr ‘lake’. Hornsey in Greater London (Middlesex) is not recorded as such until the 16th century but is nevertheless a possible additional source of the surname.

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

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

The surname "Hornsey" is relatively rare in the United States, according to data from the Decennial U.S. Census. In 2000, it was ranked as the 104,257th most popular surname, with only 159 instances recorded. A decade later, however, its popularity had increased somewhat: by 2010, it was ranked 97,671st, and the count of people with this surname had risen to 186 - an increase of nearly 17%.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#104,257	#97,671	6.32%
Count	159	186	16.98%
Proportion per 100k	0.06	0.06	0%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Hornsey

In terms of ethnic identity, the majority of individuals with the surname "Hornsey" identified as White, based on the Decennial U.S. Census data. In 2000, approximately 89.94% of people with this surname identified as White, although this percentage declined slightly to 88.17% by 2010. The percentage of people identifying as Black also decreased significantly during this period, from 5.03% to 3.23%. There was a small emergence of Hispanic identification within the Hornsey surname population, from no recorded instances in 2000 to 5.91% in 2010. No instances of Asian/Pacific Islander or American Indian and Alaskan Native identities were recorded for this surname in either census year.

	2000	2010	Change
White	89.94%	88.17%	-1.97%
Hispanic	0%	5.91%	0%
Black	5.03%	3.23%	-35.79%
Asian/Pacific Islander	0%	0%	0%
Two or More Races	0%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%