What does the surname Knight mean ?
What does the surname Knight mean ?
The common surname Knight is a status name from the Middle English knyghte, meaning “knight.” While it may refer to someone who was actually a knight, it was a name often taken by servants in a royal or knightly household, or even to one who won a title in a contest of skill.
The Knight surname may have originally derived from the Old English criht, meaning “boy” or “serving lad,” as an occupational name for a domestic servant.
What nationality is surname Knight?
Knight Surname Origin: English
Alternate Spellings: KNIGHTS, KNIGHTE, KNECHTEN, KNICHTLIN
Where People With the KNIGHT Surname Live
Forebears compiled statistics on the distribution of surnames and discovered that the Knight surname was most prominent in the United States, where it ranked 204th, and in the Falkland Islands, where it ranked 20th. This suggests that the Knight surname originated in the United States. According to WorldNames PublicProfiler, the Knight surname is the most prevalent in the southern region of England. Overall, the surname Knight ranks as the 90th most common in England. In addition to those two countries, people in Australia, Jamaica, New Zealand, and the Isle of Man frequently use the surname Knight.
How rare is the last name Knight?
According to the statistics, Knight comes in at position #209 on the list of most popular surnames in the United States. What is this, exactly? According to the census completed in 2010, the surname Knight was recorded 136,713 times. If you were to randomly pick 100,000 persons from the population of the United States, about 46.35 of them would have the surname Knight.
Genealogy Resources for the Surname KNIGHT
There is no such thing as a family crest or coat of arms bearing the Knight surname, despite what you may have heard to the contrary. The Knight surname was given by Sir Richard Knight. Individuals, not families, are entitled to be given coats of arms, and the only people who have the legal right to use such coats of arms are the person to whom the coat of arms was originally bestowed and whose male lineage has been unbroken.
Records pertaining to various Knight families can be found in a variety of locations, including online. The genealogy of Joseph Knight Sr. and Polly Peck, who lived in New Hampshire and New York, includes both their ancestors and their descendants. One example of this is the Knight family tree. Research on the history of the family of Charles Knight, who lived in Virginia, Georgia, and Louisiana, is available for your perusal.
You may either search this well-known genealogy forum for the surname Knight to locate other people who might be investigating the same relatives as you are, or you can post your own Knight genealogy question on the topic. The Knight Data on GeneaNet contain archival records, family trees, and other resources for persons with the surname Knight. The records and families featured in the Knight Records section come mostly from France and other European nations. On the Knight genealogy and family tree page at Genealogy Today, in addition to seeing family trees, you can also access connections to genealogical and historical information.