Explore the Family Name Penk

The meaning of Penk

1. German: habitational name from any of various places so named in Bavaria. 2. German: from a pet form of the personal name Benignus (see Benigno). 3. German: from an Old Prussian personal name. 4. Sorbian (P’eńk): from a diminutive of Lower Sorbian p’eń ‘tree stump, trunk’ (see Penn), probably a nickname for a short stocky person or for a fool; compare 5 below. 5. Germanized form of Sorbian Pjeńk: cognate of 1 above, from Upper Sorbian pjeńk ‘tree stump, trunk’, by extension also ‘blockhead, fool’. Some characteristic forenames: German Heinz.

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

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

According to data from the Decennial U.S. Census, the surname Penk decreased in popularity between 2000 and 2010. In 2000, it was ranked 73,154th most common surname but dropped to 83,226th place by 2010, a change of nearly 14 percent. The count of individuals with this surname also declined during this period, from 247 people in 2000 to 226 in 2010, marking an 8.5 percent decrease. Accordingly, the proportion of the population with the Penk surname per 100,000 people decreased by 11.11 percent.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#73,154	#83,226	-13.77%
Count	247	226	-8.5%
Proportion per 100k	0.09	0.08	-11.11%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Penk

In terms of ethnicity based on the Decennial U.S. Census data, the overwhelming majority of individuals with the Penk surname identified as White in both 2000 and 2010, albeit there was a slight decrease from 98.79 percent to 97.35 percent over the decade. There were no recorded individuals with the Penk surname who identified as Asian/Pacific Islander, Black, Hispanic, American Indian/Alaskan Native, or of two or more races during either census year.

	2000	2010	Change
White	98.79%	97.35%	-1.46%
Asian/Pacific Islander	0%	0%	0%
Two or More Races	0%	0%	0%
Hispanic	0%	0%	0%
Black	0%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%