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Geographic distribution of the Spurlin surname

Almost all people named Spurlin live in the United States, especially Texas, Alabama and North Carolina today and Indiana in the 19th century. The fuller spelling Spurling is still found in England (especially East Anglia and London), Australia, Canada and Bermuda.

Sourcing: strong 6 reference · 2 genealogy · 1 book · 1 commercial

Worldwide

Forebears, which estimates surname frequencies from public records, puts the number of people named Spurlin at about 3,484 worldwide. That makes it roughly the 129,933rd most common surname, or about 1 in 2.09 million people[1]. About 98% live in North America. The United States accounts for 3,467 bearers (1 in 104,545). Outside the United States Forebears finds the name in seven countries, with 11 bearers in Israel and one each in Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Panama and South Korea[1]. Another aggregator, surnam.es, gives a similar total of 3,449 bearers in six countries, 3,444 of them in the United States[2]. Forebears' figures are 2014 estimates and do not exactly match Census Bureau counts (see the entry Spurlin in the U.S. Census (2000, 2010, 2020)).

Neither aggregator lists any living Spurlins in the United Kingdom, Canada or Australia[1][2]. Historical records of the spelling outside the United States, mostly from 17th- and 18th-century England, are covered in The Spurlin name outside the United States.

Within the United States

Forebears places the largest shares of American Spurlins today in Texas (9%), Alabama (8%) and North Carolina (8%)[1]. The historical picture is different. Ancestry's summary of US censuses puts Indiana first in each year it maps: 8 Spurlin families out of 22 in 1840 (36%), 73 of 381 in 1880 (19%) and 38 of 247 in 1920 (15%)[3]. Forebears also counts 381 Spurlins in the 1880 census and estimates that the number grew about 910% between 1880 and 2014[1]. Geneanet's member trees, which cover the period from 1600 onward, most often place Spurlins in North Carolina (159 individuals) and Alabama (83). Kentucky, Georgia, Virginia, Indiana and Texas also appear in its list of common places[4]. A community called Spurlin, Texas, also carries the name[5].

Spurling abroad

Outside North America the name survives mainly in the -ing spelling. Forebears estimates about 5,200 Spurlings worldwide. It counts 953 in England, 555 in Australia, 67 in Canada and 51 in Bermuda, where the name ranks 202nd and about 1 in 1,280 people bears it. Smaller numbers live in Northern Ireland (24), Ireland (21), New Zealand (20), South Africa (15), Scotland (13), France (12) and Jersey (5), among 29 countries outside the United States[6]. Forebears records 440 Spurlings in England in 1881, against only two Spurlins. It estimates growth of 217% in England between 1881 and 2014 and of 680% in the United States between 1880 and 2014[6][1].

Ancestry's census map counts 455 Spurling entries in the 1891 England and Wales census, a third of them (152) in London. The 1911 Canadian census has 19, eight of them in Quebec[7]. In Geneanet's family trees, every English place on the list of common Spurling locations is in East Anglia: Suffolk, the Norfolk villages of Kenninghall and Banham, Woodbridge, the Tendring district of Essex, Felthorpe, Norwich and Rushmere near Ipswich[8]. English heraldic records connect Spurling and Sperling families with Hertfordshire and Essex[9]. HouseofNames, a commercial source, says the name was "first found in Hertfordshire"[10].

Caveats

The name is sometimes linked especially with Kentucky and Tennessee, but the sources consulted do not show either among the leading states for the Spurlin spelling. Forebears lists Texas, Alabama and North Carolina today, and Ancestry's historical maps list Indiana[1][3]. That reputation may partly come from the Spurling spelling. Ancestry's map puts Kentucky first for Spurling in both 1880 and 1920, and Forebears lists Tennessee and Indiana as the leading states for Spurling today[7][6]. State percentages from aggregators are estimates, and genealogy-site counts reflect where members' trees are concentrated as well as where people lived.

See also

  • Spurlin in the U.S. Census (2000, 2010, 2020) · The Surname strong
    Official U.S. Census Bureau surname files rank Spurlin about 10,000th–11,500th among American surnames, with 2,949 bearers in 2000, 3,195 in 2010 and 2,616 in 2020, most of them non-Hispanic white.
  • Spurlin (surname) · The Surname strong
    Spurlin is an English-origin surname, treated by modern surname dictionaries as a variant of Spurling/Sparling; today it is found almost entirely in the United States, where about 2,600 people bore it in the 2020 Census.
  • Spurling (surname) · The Surname strong
    Spurling is the fuller spelling from which Spurlin derives. Unlike Spurlin, it is well established in England, Australia and especially Bermuda as well as the United States.
  • Spurlin, Texas · Places mixed
    Spurlin is a ghost town in northwestern Hamilton County, Texas. It was laid out on the Stephenville North and South Texas Railway in 1908–1909 and named for its promoter, the Hamilton merchant John L. Spurlin. It had a church and a business in 1936 and had disappeared from maps by the late 1980s.
  • The Spurlin name outside the United States · Culture strong
    Spurlin is an overwhelmingly American surname today, with about 98% of bearers in the United States. The spelling is older than American settlement: English archives record Spurlins in Middlesex and Bristol between 1670 and 1717, and 18th-century leases name a field called 'Spurlins' in Hertfordshire. Outside the U.S. the related form Spurling is far more common.
  • Early Spurlin and Spurling families in America · Genealogy mixed
    Spurlin and Spurling families appear in colonial Virginia and North Carolina in the 18th century and moved west and south into Indiana, Alabama and Texas during the 19th century. Their European origins are still debated.
  • Spurlings of Bermuda (variant spelling) · Genealogy strong
    In Bermuda the name is spelled Spurling, and Forebears ranks it the island's 202nd most common surname. Bermudian Spurlings have included the banker and parliamentarian Sir Stanley Spurling (1879–1961), his son Sir Dudley Spurling, Speaker of the House of Assembly, and his nephew Arthur Rowe Spurling, a First World War flying ace.

References

  1. ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ Spurlin Surname Origin, Meaning & Last Name History — Forebears — 2014 country counts, US states, 1880 and 1881 counts Reference
  2. ↑ ↑ Spurlin Surname: origin and distribution in 6 countries — surnam.es — 3,449 bearers; United States 3,444 Reference
  3. ↑ ↑ Spurlin Surname Meaning & Spurlin Family History — Ancestry.com — Quotes Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd ed. (2022): 'English: variant of Spurling'; census distribution map for 1840, 1880 and 1920 Reference
  4. ↑ Last name SPURLIN: origin and meaning — Geneanet — 1,959 individuals in member trees; most common places Genealogy
  5. ↑ Spurlin, Texas — Wikipedia Reference
  6. ↑ ↑ ↑ Spurling Surname Origin, Meaning & Last Name History — Forebears — 2014 country counts, 1881 England and Wales counts, US states Reference
  7. ↑ ↑ Spurling Surname Meaning & Family History — Ancestry.com — census distribution map: US 1840/1880/1920, England and Wales 1891, Canada 1911 Reference
  8. ↑ Last name SPURLING: origin and meaning — Geneanet — 3,349 individuals in member trees; most common places Genealogy
  9. ↑ The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales (Sir Bernard Burke, 1884) — full text, Internet Archive — Entries Sparling (Petton, Salop); Sperling or Spurling (Weston, Herts, granted 1586); Sperling (Dynes Hall, Essex); Spurling (co. Essex) Book
  10. ↑ Spurlin Name Meaning, Family History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms — HouseofNames (commercial) — Commercial crest vendor; lower reliability Commercial

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Last reviewed 2026-09-24.