ORLANDO, FLORIDA– The most popular last names in the United States may not have changed from what they were in the past decade, but Asian surnames were the fastest growing at the beginning of this decade, the U.S. Census Bureau said Tuesday.
“Smith,” “Johnson,” “Williams,” “Brown,” and “Jones” remained the top five names in the United States in 2020, as they were in 2010, according to a tally from the most recent U.S. Census. Most of the fastest-growing last names from 2010 to 2020 were Asian, according to the Census Bureau.
The top three were Zhang, Liu, and Wang. In the 21st century, Asians have been the fastest growing racial or ethnic group among the largest racial or ethnic groups in the country, and they now make up 7% of the United States population.
The 10 most popular names in 2020 were “Garcia,” “Miller,” “Rodriguez,” “Davis,” and “Martinez.” The only change from 2010 was Rodriguez, who jumped Davis to take eighth place.
There were 7.8 million unique last names, according to the Census Bureau.
For people who identified only as Asian, the most common names were “Xiong,” “Cheng,” “Chu,” “Chow,” and “Fang.”
Among people who identified only as African American, not Hispanic, the most common last names were “Pierre,” “Washington,” “Jefferson,” “Muhammad,” and “Booker.”
For people who identified as non-Hispanic white alone, the most common last names were “Yoder,” “Friedman,” “Schwartz,” “Weiss,” and “Krueger.”
Among American Indian and Alaska Native populations, the most common last names were “John,” “Lori,” “Hunt,” “Sampson,” and “Jacobs.”
The Census Bureau has counted the most common last names in each person count conducted once a decade since the 1990 census. The 2020 Census was the first since 1990 to provide data on first names, although the Social Security Administration It maintains a number of the most popular Male and female first names for babies every year.
Census statistics showed that the most common male first names at the beginning of the decade were “Michael”, “John”, “James”, “David” and “Robert”, while the most common female first names were “Mary”, “Maria”, “Jennifer”, “Elizabeth” and “Patricia”.
Not much has changed since 1990, although there is a bit more diversity in female names. At that time, the most common first names for boys were “James”, “John”, “Robert”, “Michael” and “William”. The most common first names for females are “Mary,” “Patricia,” “Linda,” “Barbara,” and “Elizabeth.”
Unlike the Social Security Administration’s count, the Census Bureau’s count includes everyone, not just newborns. Liam and Olivia Babies’ first names over the past few years have been in the Social Security Administration’s annual census.
“The names people choose are a function of what they are exposed to, so culture certainly plays a role, but social influence also plays a role,” said Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “People are constantly exposed to the names of others around them, and this can shape not only the names they like, but also the names they avoid.”
The reason the most common first names haven’t changed much over the past 35 years is because the 2020 census included people of all age groups, not just newborns like the Social Security Administration’s census, said Michelle Napiersky-Prankle, a sociologist at Russell Sage College in New York.
“So you have generations that are potentially named Mary or John and follow traditional family naming patterns or religious naming patterns,” Napiersky-Brankle said Tuesday. “Maybe this is catching generations of baby boomers and Gen
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