Davis Surname

Meaning and origin of the surname Davis

Patronymic surname meaning 'son of David' (or Davy), from the Hebrew personal name Dawid ('beloved').

Historically and linguistically, Davis belongs to the Welsh and English family of surnames. It is conventionally pronounced "DAY-vis".

United States Census frequency and ranking

In the official 2010 United States Census, Davis was recorded 1,116,357 times, ranking as the 8th most common surname in the nation.

This represents an incidence rate of approximately 378.45 bearers per 100,000 Americans, or roughly 1 out of every 264 residents.

Race and ethnicity distribution

According to official decennial Census genealogy microdata, individuals bearing the surname Davisreported the following racial and ethnic affiliations in the 2010 US Census:

Source: US Census Bureau, 2010 Census Surnames Data. Percentages may not sum to exactly 100% due to independent rounding or suppression of small cell counts for privacy protection.

History of the surname Davis

Davis is a patronymic surname originating as a contracted form of 'David's son' or 'Davy's son'. The given name David derives from Hebrew Dawid, interpreted in biblical tradition as 'beloved' or 'uncle'. While popular across all medieval Christian Europe due to the biblical King David, the name achieved unique prestige throughout Wales through Saint David (Dewi Sant), the sixth-century bishop and patron saint of Wales.

During the sixteenth-century transition in Wales from patronymic chains (*ap Dafydd*) to fixed hereditary family names, Davis and its regional variant Davies were adopted by thousands of families across Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Cardiganshire, and Glamorgan. The spelling Davis predominated along the Welsh border counties and into southwestern England, especially Gloucestershire, Somerset, and Cornwall.

Davis arrived in North America in the early decades of the seventeenth century with colonial expeditions to Jamestown, Plymouth, and the Chesapeake Bay. Following the American Civil War, Davis was widely adopted by freed African Americans in the South. In the 2010 US Census, Davis numbered 1,116,357 bearers, ranking as the eighth most common surname in the United States.