Explore the Family Name Orwig

The meaning of Orwig

1. German: unexplained. This surname has died out in Germany. 2. In some cases also an Americanized form of Norwegian Orvik. Compare Orwick. History: The progenitor of the majority of the American Orwigs was Johannes Gottfried Orwig from Germany, who arrived in PA in 1741.

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

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

Based on the Decennial U.S. Census, the popularity of the surname Orwig has seen some fluctuations over time. In 2000, the surname was ranked 17,158 in popularity with a count of 1,524, which accounted for about 0.56 per every 100,000 people. A decade later, in 2010, the rank had slightly dipped to 17,699, but the count increased to 1,585, accounting for approximately 0.54 per 100,000 individuals. This represents a change of -3.15 in rank and an increase of 4.0 in the count, suggesting that while the Orwig name may have become less common overall, the number of people bearing it has grown.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#17,158	#17,699	-3.15%
Count	1,524	1,585	4%
Proportion per 100k	0.56	0.54	-3.57%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Orwig

As for the ethnic identity tied to the Orwig surname, the Decennial U.S. Census data shows that the majority identify as White. In 2000, an overwhelming 97.57% identified as White, a figure that dropped slightly to 97.10% by 2010. There were marginal increases in those identifying as Two or more races (from 0.59% to 0.76%) and Hispanic (from 1.25% to 1.45%). Meanwhile, there was a small emergence of Asian/Pacific Islander identification in 2010 which didn't exist in 2000. The percentages for Black and American Indian and Alaskan Native identifications remained stagnant at 0 for both years.

	2000	2010	Change
White	97.57%	97.1%	-0.48%
Hispanic	1.25%	1.45%	16%
Two or More Races	0.59%	0.76%	28.81%
Asian/Pacific Islander	0%	0.32%	0%
Black	0%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%