Samuel Merrill, 1928, reprint 1983

Merrill: the Name and Its Variations - Chapter II, pp17-27

Numerical Strength

   It would be interesting to know how many persons in the United States today bear the name Merrill, or some of its variations, but it would be very difficult to make even a good estimate of the number. In general terms, the numerical strength of a family in a given city is indicated by the number of persons bearing the family name listed in the city directory. If the number of persons in a city bearing the name Merrill, or some of its variants, bears the same ratio to the entire population of the city that the number of Merrills (Merrells, etc.,) who are listed in the directory bears to the total number of names given in the book, it is easy to estimate the numerical strength of the family in that city. If, again, we select certain cities, representing both the sections where the family is numerically strong and those where its numbers are relatively few, we may obtain certain figures which, compared with the census figures for the entire country, will give a rough estimate of the number of persons, now living in the United States, who have inherited Nathaniel Merrill’s family name.

   For this purpose I have assumed that Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and San Francisco represent, in the aggregate, the average for the country with respect to distribution of the family name. If this assumption is correct, the number of persons now living in the country bearing the family name is about 25,000, or a little more than one in every 4000. (*) But these ifs leave much to be desired by one who wishes to be accurate in matters where statistical data are concerned. The number, large as it is, is very samll, however, when compared with the entire number of those, bearing many family names, who, by reason of intermarriages, have inherited the blood of Nathaniel Merrill of Newbury.

Merrills now in England

   The London Postoffice Directory for 1917, a book of more than 2500 pages, includes only commercial and professional entries. Many classes of individuals, whose names would be included in an American directory, but who are of minor importance from a business standpoint, are omitted. In this directory Merrill appears 5 times, Merrell twice and Merralls once. Four of the five Merrills are marble masons. Merle is found twice in this directory, Morrall 3 times, Morrell 35 times, Morrill 4 times and Murrell 20 times.

   Henry Brougham Guppy, in “Homes of Family Names in Great Britain” (London, 1890), mentions Merrell as a family name represented by 18 individuals in every 10,000 among the farmers of Worcestershire, and Merrills as represented by 16 in every 10,000 in Kottinghamshire. In the other counties of Great Britain Mr. Guppy found the relative frequency of these or similar names to be less than 8 in every 10,000 of the farmers in the respective counties. Merrill is not given in his list, and hence presumably fell below the ratio of 8 in 10,000.

* My own impression is that this estimate is a little too high. Perhaps sufficient notice is not taken of the fact that the name is relatively infrequent in the South; and the large families of children in certain non-Anglosaxon races are represented in census figures without equal representationin the directories of the cities.

Chapter III

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