Explore the Family Name Scharff

The meaning of Scharff

German and Jewish (western Ashkenazic): variant of Scharf. Compare Sharff. Some characteristic forenames: German Kurt, Gerhard, Gunter, Hanns, Hans, Otto.

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

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

Based on the Decennial U.S. Census data, the popularity of the surname 'Scharff' has shown a slight increase over the period between 2000 and 2010. In 2000, it was ranked 15,551 in terms of commonality, but by 2010, it had moved up slightly to a ranking of 15,456. This improvement in rank represents a 0.61% change. The count of people with this surname also rose from 1,727 in 2000 to 1,895 in 2010, which is an increase of 9.73%. However, the proportion per 100,000 people remained stable at 0.64 throughout this time period.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#15,551	#15,456	0.61%
Count	1,727	1,895	9.73%
Proportion per 100k	0.64	0.64	0%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Scharff

In terms of ethnic identity, the largest group of people with the ‘Scharff’ surname identified as White, although there was a slight decrease from 92.70% in 2000 to 91.19% in 2010. There were increases in the percentage of people identifying as Asian/Pacific Islander (from 2.03% to 2.48%) and Hispanic (from 3.18% to 3.91%), while the percentage of those identifying with two or more races declined slightly from 1.62% to 1.58%. Interestingly, the 2010 Decennial U.S. Census data also revealed that a small proportion of individuals with the 'Scharff' surname identified as Black (0.37%) and American Indian and Alaskan Native (0.47%), categories for which data was suppressed in the 2000 census.

	2000	2010	Change
White	92.7%	91.19%	-1.63%
Hispanic	3.18%	3.91%	22.96%
Asian/Pacific Islander	2.03%	2.48%	22.17%
Two or More Races	1.62%	1.58%	-2.47%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0.47%	0%
Black	0%	0.37%	0%