Explore the Family Name Shemesh

The meaning of Shemesh

Jewish (Israeli): from Hebrew shemesh ‘sun’, a Hebraicized form of some original Ashkenazic surname.

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

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

According to the data from the Decennial U.S. Census, the popularity of the surname Shemesh has seen significant growth in the United States over a ten-year period. In 2000, the surname ranked 81,414 in popularity with a count of 216 occurrences, representing a proportion of 0.08 per 100,000 individuals. By 2010, however, the rank had improved to 60,045 with an impressive increase in count to 336 - a jump of 55.56%. This shows a rising prevalence of this surname in the population, as evidenced by its proportion per 100,000 increasing by 37.5%.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#81,414	#60,045	26.25%
Count	216	336	55.56%
Proportion per 100k	0.08	0.11	37.5%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Shemesh

The ethnic identity associated with the surname Shemesh also experienced changes between 2000 and 2010, based on data from the Decennial U.S. Census. In 2000, the majority of individuals carrying this surname identified as White (95.83%), followed by those who identified with two or more races (3.24%). No individuals identified as Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, Black, or American Indian and Alaskan Native. By 2010, though the majority still identified as White (93.75%), there was a slight decrease (-2.17%). Interestingly, the categories Asian/Pacific Islander and Hispanic emerged with 1.49% each, while the proportion of individuals identifying with two or more races slightly increased to 3.27%. There was still no recorded representation for Black, or American Indian and Alaskan Native identities.

	2000	2010	Change
White	95.83%	93.75%	-2.17%
Two or More Races	3.24%	3.27%	0.93%
Asian/Pacific Islander	0%	1.49%	0%
Hispanic	0%	1.49%	0%
Black	0%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%