Frequently Occurring Surnames from the 2010 Census

In 2018, the American Community Survey reported that 285,540 people worked as librarians, curators, and archivists. Library employees not only maintain the books and cataloging systems, but also host story time, meet the author, and literacy events to encourage children to develop a life-long love for reading. American libraries are home to thousands of books written for children. In the years to come, moviegoers can look forward to even more Dr. Seuss-inspired movies, including a film adaptation of Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
Census Bureau released the country’s 1,000 most common surnames by race and Hispanic origin and those that occurred 100 or more times in the 2010 Census.

Related America Counts Stories

The Census Bureau acts as the collection agent for these surveys, but the data themselves are available through the sponsoring agency. The Census Bureau collected data about libraries—like the public library in Universal City, Texas (pictured above)—as reimbursable projects for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). He also edited President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s official papers, served as West Virginia’s secretary of state, and served in the U.S. His 1957 book The Bridge at Remagen was made into a movie in 1969. He published the first Ilocan language translation of Don Quixote, wrote novels, plays, and founded the Ilokanos Writers Association of the Philippines.Author and historian Ken Hechler worked for the Census Bureau’s population division during the 1940 Census.

The Chance That Two People Chosen at Random Are of Different Race or Ethnicity Groups Has Increased Since 2010

The addition of a new write-in area for collecting detailed White responses was one of the improvements made to the 2020 Census race question design. Among those who identified as White alone or in combination, English (46.6 million), German (45 million), and Irish (38.6 million) were the largest groups. Together, the English (46.6 million), German (45 million), and Irish (38.6 million) alone or in any combination populations made up over half of the White alone or in combination population in 2020. For the first time ever, respondents to the 2020 Census who reported White as a race could write in more details such as Italian, Palestinian or Cajun. Reimbursable surveys conducted for the National Center for Education Statistics—like the National Teacher and Principal Survey—collect data on the number of schools with libraries and media centers. For example, the Surveys for the Institute of Museum and Library Services collected data from more than 9,000 libraries in 2022.
By 2000, 80.3% of the nation’s population lived in metro areas, with fully 50% in suburbs and 30.3% in central cities. The U.S. population in 1950 still lived mostly either in cities or in rural areas, often on farms. The five occupations employing the largest number of women in 2019 were registered nurses; elementary and middle school teachers; secretaries and administrative assistants; miscellaneous managers; and customer services representatives. The five occupations employing the largest number of women in 1950 were stenographers, typists, secretaries; saleswomen in retail trade; school teachers; bookkeepers; and workers in apparel factories. These families were more likely to have children under 18 present in 1950 (52%) than in 2019 (41%).
The concept of “diversity” we use refers to the representation and relative size of different racial and ethnic groups within a population and is maximized when all groups are represented in an area and have equal shares of the population. In this America Counts story on racial and ethnic diversity, we cross-tabulate the race and Hispanic origin statistics, as data users often do, such as with the 2020 Census redistricting tables. This differs from 2010, when the largest racial or ethnic group in California was the White alone non-Hispanic population, whose share declined from 40.1% in 2010 to 34.7% in 2020. We do plan to continue researching how using alternative racial and ethnic categories may inform the diversity measures and share these findings in future publications. These demographic changes as well as improvements to the ways in which race and ethnicity data are collected and processed reveal the U.S. population is more racially and ethnically diverse than measured in 2010.

Prevalence Rankings and Diffusion Score

• He also published a series of nonfiction books containing humorous children’s phrases (Boners and More Boners) in 1931.
• In West Virginia, the Multiracial non-Hispanic population (4.0%) became the second-most prevalent group, surpassing the Black or African American alone non-Hispanic population (3.6%).
• About two-thirds of the White alone and White alone or in combination populations reported a detailed response, such as German, Irish, Lebanese or French Canadian.
• Only three of the country’s 10 largest cities in 1950 (Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.) were in the South or West.
• A value of 0 indicates that everyone in the population has the same racial and ethnic characteristics.
• The largest Irish population (567,668) was in Cook County, Illinois, home to Chicago.

Italian was the largest group in several counties in New Jersey and the Long Island area of New York. German was the largest group in over 1,000 counties, particularly in the Midwest, Pennsylvania, and parts of Texas, including the Texas Hill Country. The English population was the most prevalent group in northern New England, the South, and throughout the West, as well as in Puerto Rico (Figure 4).

Redistricting & Voting Rights Data Office (RDO)

There was an average of 3.51 people per household in 1950, substantially higher than the average of 2.61 in 2019. The population under age 18 was 31.0% of the total population in 1950 and would grow to 34.3% in 1970. In some of these cities, the population began climbing again in recent decades. In some cases, the population losses were sizeable, amounting to one half or more of the cities’ 1950 populations. The other eight (Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland, St Louis, Washington, D.C., and Boston) all saw their decennial populations peak in 1950 and fall in the coming decades. A number of large industrial cities in the Northeast and Midwest hit their peak decennial populations in 1950 and would experience population declines in subsequent decades in both relative and absolute terms.
There is more variation in the map for the second-most prevalent racial or ethnic group. Figures 2 and 3 show the most and second-most prevalent racial or ethnic groups by county in 2020. In West Virginia, the Multiracial non-Hispanic population (4.0%) became the second-most prevalent group, surpassing the Black or African American alone non-Hispanic population (3.6%). This calculation tells us how diverse and “diffused” the population is relative to the largest groups.
English alone or in any combination was the largest detailed White group in approximately two-thirds (2,050) of the counties in the United States and Puerto Rico. The Italian alone population was concentrated in New York and New Jersey. The next largest groups were Pennsylvania German, Cajun, and Australian (Figure 2). An additional 11 detailed White alone or in any combination groups had at least 1 million people, including Swedish (3.8 million), Norwegian (3.8 million), and Dutch (3.6 million) (Figure 1). Middle Eastern and North African responses, such as Lebanese, Iranian, and Egyptian, represented over 1% of the White alone and White alone or in combination populations.
In a 1975 episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood, Hamilton said of the Wicked Witch, “Sometimes, Mister Rogers, I’m a little unhappy because lots of children are quite scared by her.” Another of the films stars was often recognized by children who ran away wino casino crying! The movie stars Grand Rapids, MN, native Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale, a Kansas farm girl who is transported to the Land of Oz by a tornado. L. Frank Baum’s popular children’s book The Wizard of Oz became one of the most beloved motion pictures in history thanks to a talented cast of lovable characters.

Changes in Relative Rankings of Cities

• Get tips and tricks on how to access, visualize and use Census Bureau data.
• The 2021 Annual Survey of Manufactures found that American footwear manufacturing establishments (NAICS 3162) had annual sales, value of shipments, or revenues of more than $1.6 billion and employed 10,379 people nationwide.
• Here we present highlights on racial and ethnic diversity from the 2020 Census and explain what each measure tells us about the nation’s population.
• Figures 2 and 3 show the most and second-most prevalent racial or ethnic groups by county in 2020.
• On August 11–12, 1939, the movie The Wizard of Oz premiered in Dennis, MA, Kenosha, WI, and Oconomowoc, WI.

During the same period, the largest racial or ethnic group has changed for some states and counties, and local level results illuminate new areas of diversity across the country. Using the same Diversity Index calculation for 2020 and 2010 redistricting data, the chance that two people chosen at random will be from different racial or ethnic groups has increased to 61.1% in 2020 from 54.9% in 2010. In this format, the DI tells us the chance that two people chosen at random will be from different racial and ethnic groups. A value close to 1 indicates that almost everyone in the population has different racial and ethnic characteristics. A value of 0 indicates that everyone in the population has the same racial and ethnic characteristics. We use the Diversity Index (DI) to measure the probability that two people chosen at random will be from different racial and ethnic groups.

Fearing the film would be unpopular, movie studio executives chose these cities to debut the movie to better gauge audience reaction. On August 11–12, 1939, the movie The Wizard of Oz premiered in Dennis, MA, Kenosha, WI, and Oconomowoc, WI. In 2021, spending at movie theaters and streaming content at home and on mobile devices reached $36.8 billion. When the movie The Wizard of Oz premiered in August 1939, 85 million Americans watched movies in theaters and spent $659 million every week. Education is one of many topics covered by the survey and the data are not designed to provide a highly detailed look at the many different types of educational arrangements and innovations pursued by households in this unusual school year. Among the 15 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), for example, the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH MSA, went from 0.9% in the spring of 2020 to 8.9% by the fall.
In the 2020 Census, over 235 million people reported they were White alone or in combination with another race group, such as Black or African American. The alone or in any combination population includes those who reported one or more responses to the race question such as only Austrian or Austrian and German or Austrian and Asian. The alone population includes those who reported only one response to the race question, such as Austrian. As a result, data are now available from the decennial census for 104 detailed White groups, including Lithuanian, Irish, Libyan, Syrian, Pennsylvania Dutch and Australian.
From 1790 through 1820, the decennial census was conducted as of the first Monday in August. The 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz was filmed at the Metro Goldwyn-Mayer studios (above) in Culver City, CA, and in Liberal, KS. The Wizard of Oz remains so popular that the 2019 theatrical release of the movie commemorating its 80th anniversary grossed more than $1.2 million! Today, the movie remains a staple of the holiday television schedule with families planning to view the movie together at Thanksgiving and the Winter Holidays.
The 2021 Annual Survey of Manufactures found that American footwear manufacturing establishments (NAICS 3162) had annual sales, value of shipments, or revenues of more than $1.6 billion and employed 10,379 people nationwide. Today, thousands of people in the United States continue to produce footwear for stage, screen, sports, the office, and outdoor adventures. More recently, Nike’s “Cortez” sneakers played a “supporting role” in 1994’s Academy Award-winning movie Forest Gump. More than 8 decades since the movie’s release, the sparkling red shoes still attract excited crowds to the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History in Washington, DC. The red sequined “ruby slippers” Judy Garland wore in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz are perhaps the most famous footwear in American popular culture.
Here, we see results that are not as impacted by the race reporting patterns of Hispanic or Latino respondents. Building upon our research over the past decade, we improved the design of the two separate questions and updated our data processing and coding procedures for the 2020 Census. Visit the Census Bureau’s Genealogy page to see frequently occurring surnames from previous censuses. The graphics show the top 15 most popular surnames and those with the largest increase and rank.
As our country’s demographics change and the nation becomes more multiracial, it’s important to understand the composition of the race alone and race alone or in any combination populations. These multiple measures of diversity complement the 2020 Census redistricting data release and enable us to explore the richness and complexity of our nation’s population in a new light. The White alone non-Hispanic population was the most prevalent racial or ethnic group for all states except California (Hispanic or Latino), Hawaii (Asian alone non-Hispanic), New Mexico (Hispanic or Latino), and the District of Columbia, a state equivalent (Black or African American alone non-Hispanic).
In Hawaii County, Hawaii, there was a 77.7% chance that two people chosen at random were from different racial or ethnic groups. Again, the way to interpret the DI is that there was a 73.7% chance in Prince William County, Virginia, that two people chosen at random were from different racial or ethnic groups. We explored using alternative racial and ethnic categories for our analysis but found that they did not have a substantial impact on the overall results. The most prevalent racial or ethnic group for the United States was the White alone non-Hispanic population at 57.8%. In data tables, such as the 2020 Census redistricting data tables that provide Hispanic origin by race statistics, we often cross-tabulate the race and Hispanic origin categories to display Hispanic as a single category and the non-Hispanic race groups as categories summing up to the total population. Expectations of what it means for a population to be racially and ethnically diverse may differ.