Explore the Family Name Thorns

The meaning of Thorns

1. North German (Lower Saxony): variant of Thorn. 2. English (Sussex, Yorkshire and Staffordshire): variant of Thorne with plural or post-medieval excrescent -s. There are various minor places called Thorns or Thornes, including Thornes in Wakefield (Yorkshire) and Thornes in Stonnall (Staffordshire), which appear to be principal sources of the surname.

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

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

Based on the Decennial U.S. Census, the popularity of the surname "Thorns" has remained relatively stable between 2000 and 2010. In 2000, it was ranked 48,877th in terms of prevalence and by 2010, it had shifted slightly to 48,901st place, marking a marginal decline of 0.05%. Despite this slight drop in rank, the actual count of individuals bearing the surname increased from 405 to 431, showing an increase of 6.42%.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#48,877	#48,901	-0.05%
Count	405	431	6.42%
Proportion per 100k	0.15	0.15	0%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Thorns

Examining the ethnic identity associated with the surname "Thorns", data from the Decennial U.S. Census reveals some interesting shifts between 2000 and 2010. The majority of Thorns were identified as Black, comprising 76.05% in 2000 and increasing to 77.73% in 2010. The percentage of those who identified as White decreased from 20.99% to 18.56% over the same period, while those identifying with two or more races also saw a reduction from 1.48% to 1.16%. Notably, there was no record of Asian/Pacific Islander or American Indian and Alaskan Native among the Thorns in either year. However, the Hispanic category showed a new emergence in 2010 at 1.86%, which was not present in the 2000 data.

	2000	2010	Change
Black	76.05%	77.73%	2.21%
White	20.99%	18.56%	-11.58%
Hispanic	0%	1.86%	0%
Two or More Races	1.48%	1.16%	-21.62%
Asian/Pacific Islander	0%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%