Sorby
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/sɔɹbi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sorby is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Main GB Location (1881): WR Yorks. see Sowerby .
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 234K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 1.1M
- NONorway≈1 in 95K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 159 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 95K (inferred from the name graph)
298 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Norway, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Main GB Location (1881): WR Yorks. see Sowerby .
Sources 1
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sorby counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 298 | 1 in 1.1M | 355 | Sorby | 159 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈280 est. | ≈1 in 234K | 503 | Sorby | 86 |
| AU Australia | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 190K | — | Sorby | 52 |
| FR France | ≈75 est. | ≈1 in 906K | 6 | — | 3 |
| CA Canada | ≈68 est. | ≈1 in 555K | — | Sorby | 33 |
| NO Norway | ≈58 est. | ≈1 in 95K | — | Sorby | 10 |
| FI Finland | ≈34 est. | ≈1 in 163K | — | Sorby | 1 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈12 est. | ≈1 in 401K | — | Sorby | 23 |
298 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Henry Clifton Sorbyb. 1826GBBritish scientist, founder of microscopical petrology and metallography (1826–1908)
- Thomas Charles Sorbyb. 1836English-Canadian architect
- Angela SorbyUSAmerican poet
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 14 sources across 5 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 503 | #11,332 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 355 | #61,138 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 318 | #59,453 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 298 | #66,371 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 11 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 11 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 7 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 6 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 6 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 6 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 4 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 2 | — |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Sorby mean, and where does it come from?
- Main GB Location (1881): WR Yorks. see Sowerby . Recorded by The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland.
- How do you pronounce Sorby?
- A machine transcription gives /sɔɹbi/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Sorby have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 298 people named Sorby, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sorby.
- How common is the name Sorby?
- In the United States, the national register counted 298 people named Sorby in 2010, about 1 in 1.1 million residents.
What do you want to know about Sorby?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/sorbyThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Sorby”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.