Explore the Family Name Leer

The meaning of Leer

1. Dutch: from a shortened form of the personal name Hilaire (from Latin Hilarius; see Hillary). 2. Danish: habitational name from a place so called in northern Germany, near Oldenburg. 3. Danish: from ler ‘clay’, possibly a topographic name for someone who lived on clay or an occupational name for someone who extracted or used it. — Note: The population figure published by the US Census Bureau for this surname in the year 2000 is as high as 1197, while the figure for 2010 is supposedly lower than 100.

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

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

According to the data compiled from the Decennial U.S. Census, the surname 'Leer' was ranked 20,578 in popularity in the year 2000. There were approximately 1,197 individuals who held this surname, thereby making up roughly 0.44 per 100,000 people. Unfortunately, due to privacy concerns, information regarding the change in popularity of this surname and the count in 2010 has been suppressed.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#20,578	#0	0%
Count	1,197	0	0%
Proportion per 100k	0.44	0	0%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Leer

In terms of ethnicity as documented in the Decennial U.S. Census, in 2000, a majority of the bearers of the surname 'Leer' identified as White, comprising 91.40% of the total. The next largest ethnic identity group was Black at 3.84%. Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander groups accounted for 1.59% and 1.17% respectively. Those identifying as two or more races made up 1.5%, while American Indian and Alaskan Natives represented the smallest portion with 0.50%. Regrettably, changes in these statistics and data for 2010 have been suppressed for privacy reasons.

	2000	2010	Change
Asian/Pacific Islander	1.17%	0%	0%
Two or More Races	1.5%	0%	0%
White	91.4%	0%	0%
Hispanic	1.59%	0%	0%
Black	3.84%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0.5%	0%	0%