Common U S. Surnames

These improvements reveal that the U.S. population is much more multiracial and diverse than what we measured in the past. An official website of the United States government The first link explains the methodology used for identifying and editing names data. Or it might be the first census showing an African American family from the rural South living in an urban neighborhood in the Northeast or Midwest, or a family from the rural Midwest living in California.

• Expectations of what it means for a population to be racially and ethnically diverse may differ.
• Similarly, we do not see the same large increase in the Multiracial non-Hispanic population from 2010 to 2020 using these cross-tabulated categories.
• 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.
• There was an average of 3.51 people per household in 1950, substantially higher than the average of 2.61 in 2019.
• For more information on how the Census Bureau collects, codes and tabulates statistics on Hispanic or Latino origin and race, explore our 2020 Census subject definitions pages and the 2020 Census Redistricting Technical Documentation.
• The rankings of cities by population were considerably different in 1950 prior to the trends in regional migration and suburbanization.

Other White responses, such as Canadian and Pennsylvania German, represented around 2% of the White alone and White alone or in combination populations. Detailed European responses accounted for 58.8% of the White alone and 56.1% of the White alone or in combination populations. 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.
In short, the country had not yet been impacted by most of the major postwar demographic and economic trends that would greatly change the size, shape and composition of the U.S. population. In hindsight, we can now see that on many demographic fronts the U.S. population in 1950 looked more like the country in 1940 than the rapidly growing, youthful nation to come in 1960 or 1970. With little housing construction during the prior two decades, the nation’s population mostly lived in cities and rural areas, often in crowded conditions. Italian was also the largest group in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, New Haven County, Connecticut and Guaynabo Municipio, Puerto Rico.
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).
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.
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.

Data Sources

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.

For Immediate Release: Thursday, December 15, 2016

• More racial or ethnic groups are represented and the patterns are not as tightly clustered in specific regions.
• His 1957 book The Bridge at Remagen was made into a movie in 1969.
• The share of the population in metro areas was 56.1% in 1950, with 32.8% in central cities and 23.3% living in suburbs.
• 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 English alone population was the largest detailed White group nationally, in 35 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
• Today, thousands of people in the United States continue to produce footwear for stage, screen, sports, the office, and outdoor adventures.
• More than 8 decades later, movie critics, adults, and children still consider The Wizard of Oz to be one of the greatest movies in film history.

For the District of Columbia, the difference in the size of the Black or African American alone non-Hispanic population (40.9%) and the White alone non-Hispanic population (38.0%) narrowed dramatically in 2020 with only a 2.9 percentage point difference. In Texas, the first- and second-most prevalent group rankings did not change between 2010 and 2020, but the difference in size between the White alone non-Hispanic population (39.7%) and the Hispanic or Latino population (39.3%) shrank to 0.4 percentage points. In Wisconsin, the Hispanic or Latino population (7.6%) became the second-most prevalent group, surpassing the Black or African American alone non-Hispanic population (6.2%). You can explore the Diversity Index for all states and counties by interacting with the data visualization.

Related Statistics

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%).

Diversity Index Varies by Geographic Level

In 1984, his novel The Natural was adapted to a popular movie.Thelma Strabel worked as a census taker before the Saturday Evening Post magazine serialized her 1940 novel Reap the Wild Wind. Our most recent census counted 331,449,281 people as of April 1, 2020. You can learn more about the Wizard of Oz and its cast using census data and records.

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.

Some Sunbelt Cities Yet to Show Explosive Growth

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!
The 2020 Census used the required two separate questions (one for Hispanic or Latino origin and one for race) to collect the races and ethnicities of the U.S. population — following the standards set by the U.S. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. A decennial census is, after all, a collection of data on every individual in the United States. By 2020, Aurora’s population had skyrocketed to around 386,000, making it the 51st largest city in the country surpassing Cleveland (population around 373,000), then ranked 54th. For instance, Cleveland in 1950 had about 915,000 people and was the nation’s seventh-largest city.
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).
In addition, we decided to continue using this racial and ethnic cross-tabulation because it is commonly used by the Census Bureau and other data users. These diversity calculations require the use of mutually exclusive racial and ethnic (nonoverlapping) categories. The overall racial and ethnic diversity of the country has increased since 2010, according to U.S. Today’s companion America Counts story on the overview of race and ethnicity explains that differences in overall racial distributions are largely due to design improvements in the two separate questions for race data collection and processing, as well as some demographic changes over the past 10 years.
The largest German alone population was in Pennsylvania — 1,112,662, or 11.4% of the state’s White alone population. Texas had the largest English alone population (over 2.1 million) (Table 1). The German alone population was the largest in 10 states, the Italian alone population in four, and the Irish alone population only in Massachusetts. The English alone population was the largest detailed White group nationally, in 35 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. French Canadian and Canadian were the two largest detailed groups wino casino in the “Other White” population, with their alone or in any combination populations each exceeding half a million.
He also published a series of nonfiction books containing humorous children’s phrases (Boners and More Boners) in 1931. Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in Springfield, MA, on March 2, 1904, a short distance away from the Mulberry Street he made famous with the publication of his first children’s storybook—And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. At the time of his death on September 24, 1991, “Dr. Seuss” had sold more than 600 million copies of books that had been translated into dozens of languages for children around the world to enjoy. Children’s book author and illustrator Theodor Seuss Geisel wrote some of the most popular children’s books of all time. Theodor Seuss Geisel—better known as “Dr. Seuss”—authored some of the most popular and best-selling children’s books ever written. The whimsical world of Dr. Seuss is still so popular more than eight decades since author Theodor Seuss Geisel published his first children’s book that the U.S.