The Census Bureau has captured the Hispanification of America in new data showing that five of the top 15 surnames are now of Spanish origin.
Smith remains the dominant name, holding the No. 1 spot — just as it did in 1790, at the country’s founding, and the rest of the top five have also been at or near the top over the ensuing centuries: Johnson, Williams, Brown and Jones.
But No. 6 is Garcia, followed by Rodriguez at No. 8, then Martinez, Hernandez, Lopez and Gonzalez at 10 through 13.
As recently as 1990, none of those names even cracked the top 15. But four of them were there by 2000, and by 2010 all six of them were present.
And gone were names that had been there since the country’s founding, such as Moore, Taylor and White.
Joshua Comenetz, a senior geographer at the Census Bureau, said he was struck by the fact that the top five names managed to survive the Hispanic surge.
“It is certainly surprising given the enormous change in population since then,” he said in the Census Bureau’s write-up of the changes.
While Hispanic names rank high, it’s Asian-linked names that showed the most growth from 2010 to 2020. The bureau took the top 1,000 last names and honed in on the 15 that grew the fastest.
Zhang led the way with a 74% increase over the decade, going from about 70,000 to 122,000. More than 96% of the Zhangs in the U.S. self-identified as Asian, Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, the bureau said.
The only non-Asian name to appear in the top 15 fastest growers was Ali.
Census officials said names associated with White people were far more diverse. They sliced out a sample of 25% of each population and found it took just 35 names to cover the Hispanics, 45 to cover the Asians, 50 to cover the Black population, 160 to cover American Indians and 334 to cover the White population.
Mr. Comenetz said that’s likely because White names come from a wide range of languages.
First names were a different story.
Michael, John, James, David and Robert led the list.
Mary was the top female name, at No. 7, followed by Maria at No. 8.
The Census Bureau said male names tend to cluster, while female names are varied.
The census names cover every person whose name was submitted in the last decennial count.
That’s different than Social Security’s annual list of names culled from that agency’s record of newborns who are registered for numbers.
Social Security’s top five boy names in 2020 were Liam, Noah, Oliver, Elijah and William. The top five girl names were Olivia, Emma, Ava, Charlotte and Sophia.
Mr. Comenetz said even given all the other shifts, he thinks the most common last names are going to survive.
“I suspect Smith would still be the most popular last name in 2075,” he said.
