Location of Surname Variations in the United States

Hauder, Haueter, Hauter, Houder, Houter & Howder

Is this a Common Surname? Surname Variation as Percent of Total. Household Location by Surname Variation. Most Common Surname Variation by State. Surname Household Density by State. Surname Frequency Ratio Table. Is this a Common Surname? No. This surname is extremely rare but there are enough instances to make for an interesting study. I have attempted to compile a few statistics on this page. If your surname is Hauder, Haueter, Hauter, Houder, Houter, or Howder, or if this is your maiden name, or if you're married to someone with this surname you are part of a very select group. Congratulations on your good fortune! Surname Variation as Percent of Total In December 1997 I searched Switchboard, an online directory of telephone listings in the United States for six different surname variations: Hauder, Haueter, Hauter, Houder, Houter and Howder. Using this I uncovered a list of 562 households. The full number of individuals with a variation of the surname will undoubtedly be higher since many households have unlisted telephone numbers and would never appear in Switchboard, the average household size is greater than one person, and switchboard probably does not have every publicly available telephone listing in the United States. Nonetheless if we make an assumption that these factors apply equally to each surname variation, we can estimate the relative frequency of each. Surname variations fell into three distinct categories when compared against each other: frequent; moderately frequent; and trace. In the sample, Haueter and Hauter appeared frequently, Howder and Hauder appeared with moderate frequency; and Houder and Houter appeared in trace amounts. Actual percentages appear in Figure 1. _______________________________________ Figure 1. SURNAME VARIATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES Surname Nationwide Percent of Variations Households Households __________ __________ _____________ Hauder 71 12.6% Haueter 215 38.3% Hauter 178 31.7% Houder 21 3.7% Houter 1 0.2% Howder 76 13.5% TOTAL 562 100.0% SOURCE: Switchboard, December 1997. http://www.switchboard.com _______________________________________ The surname can also be found in Canada but in different percentages and at lower levels, as outlined in Figure 2. Only seven examples could be found in Canada, all within the province of Ontario. The most interesting variation is "Houter." In Canada there were three occurrences, but in the United States there was only a single instance. ____________________________________ Figure 2. SURNAME VARIATIONS IN CANADA (all found in Ontario) Surname Nationwide Percent of Variations Households Households __________ __________ __________ Hauder 0 0.0% Haueter 3 42.9% Hauter 0 0.0% Houder 1 14.2% Houter 3 42.9% Howder 0 0.0% TOTAL 7 100.0% SOURCE: Canada411, December 1997. http://canada411.sympatico.ca ___________________________________ No variation of the surname would be considered common in either the United States or Canada when compared against the total population of either country. Bear in mind that there were only 562 instances found in the entire United States and only 7 in Canada! Household Location by Surname Variation I converted the surname data downloaded from Switchboard, discussed above, into a comma-delimited file. Next I loaded the file into a spreadsheet and sorted the occurrences by State, City and Zip Code. I used the resulting list to develop a map of the United States, showing the location of each household color-coded by surname variation. The results can be seen in Figure 3. Most striking, this is a 100% sample of every household. Try doing that with a surname like Smith or Johnson! The map makes it easy to distinguish settlement patterns: Hauder appears near Lincoln, Nebraska; Boise, Idaho; Reno, Nevada; and Central Missouri. Haueter appears in great numbers around Akron, Ohio; and in smaller groups near Lansing, Michigan; Cincinnati, Ohio; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Eastern Oregon / Boise, Idaho. Hauter appears heavily near Peoria, Illinois; and Toledo, Ohio; and in smaller concentrations throughout Illinois; Indiana; Michigan; Ohio; and in the vicinity of New York City. Houder appears sporadically in Colorado; near Houston, Texas; and in the vicinity of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Houter could only be found in Bakersfield, CA. Howder appears in Southeast Illinois / Southwest Indiana; and near Ann Arbor, Michigan; the District of Columbia; and Atlanta, Georgia. Both California and Florida had a wide assortment of surname variations with no dominant concentrations, perhaps as a result of more recent migrations? And here is the complete set of data points displayed on a map of the United States. Figure 3: Household Locations in the U.S. by Surname Variation Most Common Surname Variation by State By taking the analysis one step further one can determine the dominant surname variation by State. In Figure 4, I have graphically depicted a "winner take all" approach whereby the surname variation with the most households received credit for dominating the State. A text based version of the same information can also be found in Figure 6. I followed this method even when the number of households differed only by one, so ties occurred only when the number of households were exactly equal. Interestingly each variation dominates in at least three States (except Houter which appeared in negligible quantities anyway). Even the variation Houder, which was found in only 21 households, managed to dominate in Colorado, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Figure 4: Most Common Surname Variation by U.S. State Surname Household Density by State A wide degree of household density exists from State to State as detailed in the graphic in Figure 5 and in the table in Figure 6. I developed a surname frequency ratio based on the number of households versus the total population in each State. This is not the true population density for the reasons discussed above, but a method to determine relative frequency. For example, Oregon has a surname frequency ratio of 5306 while Kentucky has a ratio of 2575, meaning that one would be about twice as likely to find a household with a variation of the surname in Oregon than in Kentucky. Also for example, California has more surname households than any other State, but it also has the highest population, so its surname frequency ratio of 2572 doesn't even place it in the Top 10. The locations with the highest surname frequency ratios are found in Nebraska, a cluster of midwestern States (Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio), and a grouping of mountain west States (Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, and Utah). In general, northern States had higher surname frequency ratios than southern States. Figure 5: Surname Household Density by U.S. State Surname Frequency Ratio Table _________________________________________________________________________ Figure 6. COMPARISON OF SURNAME VARIATIONS TO STATE POPULATION Est. Surname Surname Most Frequent Population Households Freq. Surname State Jul. 96 Dec. 1997 Ratio Variation (1) (2) (3) (4) _________________ __________ __________ _______ _____________________ Nebraska 1,652,093 23 13922 Hauder Utah 2,000,494 19 9498 Haueter Idaho 1,189,251 11 9250 Hauder Ohio 11,172,782 75 6713 Haueter Nevada 1,603,163 9 5614 Hauder Oregon 3,203,735 17 5306 Haueter Michigan 9,594,350 46 4794 Hauter Indiana 5,840,528 26 4452 Howder Illinois 11,846,544 47 3967 Hauter Florida 14,399,985 43 2986 Hauter Iowa 2,851,792 8 2805 Hauder Kentucky 3,883,723 10 2575 Haueter California 31,878,234 82 2572 Haueter Colorado 3,822,676 8 2093 Houder Dist. of Columbia 543,213 1 1841 Howder Connecticut 3,274,238 6 1832 Hauter Virginia 6,675,451 12 1798 Howder Wisconsin 5,159,795 9 1744 Haueter Minnesota 4,657,758 8 1718 Haueter Hawaii 1,183,723 2 1690 Hauter Alaska 607,007 1 1647 Hauder Washington 5,532,939 9 1627 Hauter Kansas 2,572,150 4 1555 Hauder Delaware 724,842 1 1380 Houder Missouri 5,358,692 7 1306 Hauder Oklahoma 3,300,902 4 1212 Haueter Arkansas 2,509,793 3 1195 Hauter Montana 879,372 1 1137 Haueter Texas 19,128,261 18 941 Hauter New Jersey 7,987,933 7 876 Hauter New Hampshire 1,162,481 1 860 Hauter Georgia 7,353,225 6 816 Howder Maryland 5,071,604 4 789 Hauter/Howder Tennessee 5,319,654 4 752 Haueter/Hauter Pennsylvania 12,056,112 9 747 Houder Arizona 4,428,068 3 677 Haueter/Hauter/Houder New York 18,184,774 10 550 Hauter North Carolina 7,322,870 4 546 Haueter South Carolina 3,698,746 2 541 Haueter Massachusetts 6,092,352 2 328 Haueter/Hauter Alabama 4,273,084 0 0 n/a Louisiana 4,350,579 0 0 n/a Maine 1,243,316 0 0 n/a Mississippi 2,716,115 0 0 n/a New Mexico 1,713,407 0 0 n/a North Dakota 643,539 0 0 n/a Rhode Island 990,225 0 0 n/a South Dakota 732,405 0 0 n/a Vermont 588,654 0 0 n/a West Virginia 1,825,754 0 0 n/a Wyoming 481,400 0 0 n/a UNITED STATES 265,283,783 562 2118 SOURCES: (1) Population Estimates Program, Population Division, U.S. Bureau of the Census, Washington, DC 20233 (Release date: Dec. 30, 1996). (2) Switchboard internet telephone directory (www.switchboard.com). (3) Estimated Population divided by Surname Households, to seven places with decimal point and leading zeros removed. (4) Switchboard internet telephone directory (www.switchboard.com). _________________________________________________________________________