You already know that the 2010 census is counting how many people live where in the United States. What you may not know is that the census tallies many other interesting pieces of information as well, such as how many Americans own computers and televisions and how many of each of those items they own. In addition to providing information about how many computers and televisions we all have, the Census Bureau has ranked the surnames of Americans from most to least popular.
It is probably not surprising to you that the most popular surname in the United States is Smith. The top twenty surnames in America in 1990 were:
1. Smith
2. Johnson
3. Williams
4. Jones
5. Brown
6. Davis
7. Miller
8. Wilson
9. Moore
10. Taylor
11. Anderson
12. Thomas
13. Jackson
14. White
15. Harris
16. Martin
17. Thompson
18. Garcia
19. Martinez
20. Robinson
If you are wondering who has the most unique surname in America according to the 1990 census, it is the Aalderink family, who has the least popular of the 88,799 surnames that the 1990 census found among Americans. When I looked for my name, I realized that the list is not searchable. I stopped looking after a while, because locating my name on the list may have taken all night. I did find my husband’s last name at number 929, and my mother’s maiden name at 1095. I looked for my first name on the given name rankings and found that my name is the 23rd most popular name among girls and women. It appears as though they may have lumped some names together such as those with only slightly different spellings like Sara and Sarah.
The rankings and statistics that are available on the census web page are only a small part of the wealth of information that can be found there. If you are interested in genealogy, you may want to look at the census web site because census data is a useful family history research tool.