The U.S. Census Bureau released on April 14 a series of data tables listing the most common first and last names reported in the 2020 Census.
The new data includes national counts of last names by race and Hispanic origin, first names by race and Hispanic origin, as well as first names by sex. A summary table also compares the most common names in the censuses of 1790, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, this is the first time since the 1990 Census that data on first names has been provided alongside surnames. The release notes that for highlights such as “Garcia” being a predominantly Hispanic last name—where “91% of people named Garcia chose Hispanic in their response to the 2020 Census”—the term “predominantly” refers to a majority identifying with one group.
Eight surnames—Brown, Davis, Johnson, Jones, Miller, Smith, Williams and Wilson—have remained among the top fifteen since the nation’s first census in 1790. Since 2000, six predominantly Hispanic surnames (Garcia, Gonzalez, Hernandez, Lopez, Martinez and Rodriguez) have entered this group. Between 2010 and 2020 all but one of the fastest-growing surnames among the top thousand were predominantly Asian; only eleven Asian surnames made this list between 2000 and 2010.
Despite women outnumbering men in the United States during this period,”the top five most common first names were all predominantly male.” The bureau said female given names are more varied than male ones. In addition to traditional gendered patterns—for example Michael or Mary—the report found several popular unisex names like Harley or Quinn with nearly equal distribution between males and females.
The datasets include only frequencies for individual given or family names without identifying information about specific persons or name combinations. The bureau said statistical safeguards are used to protect confidentiality of responses. More details can be found on census.gov’s Name Data page.
