The U.S. Census Bureau today released a series of data tables of the most common first and last names reported in the 2020 Census.
The tables include national-level counts of:
- Last names by race and Hispanic origin.
- First names by race and Hispanic origin.
- First names by sex.
A summary table is also available that compares the most common names in the 1790 Census with those in the 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020 Censuses.
The Census Bureau has produced counts of the most common surnames (last names) in each census since the 1990 Census. The 2020 Census is the first since 1990 to provide data on first names.
In the listed Highlights, the term “predominantly” is used where the majority of the people with the listed names identified with a single race, Hispanic origin, or sex category. For example, “Garcia” is a predominantly Hispanic last name because 91% of the people named Garcia chose Hispanic in their response to the 2020 Census.
Highlights
- Eight of the top 15 last names in 1790, 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020 have stayed in the top 15 since the first census in 1790. The names are Brown, Davis, Johnson, Jones, Miller, Smith, Williams and Wilson.
- The most notable change over time in the top 15 surnames is the addition of predominantly Hispanic last names. Since 2000, six Hispanic last names have joined the top 15. They are Garcia, Gonzalez, Hernandez, Lopez, Martinez and Rodriguez.
- Between 2010 and 2020, all but one of the fastest-growing last names among the top 1,000 were predominantly Asian. The list of fastest-growing last names between 2000 and 2010 had only 11 Asian surnames. This change reflects the shift in immigration patterns.
- Even though the number of women exceeded the number of men in the United States in 2020, the top five most common first names were all predominantly male. This shows female names have more variety than male names.
- In 2020, most first names were almost entirely male, such as Michael, John and James, or almost entirely female, such as Mary, Maria and Jennifer. There were also several first names among the top 1,000 that were close to a 50/50 split between males and females, such as Harley, Emerson and Quinn. For these names, the probability of an individual being male or female is nearly equal.
More highlights are available in the America Counts story “Eight of the Nation’s Top 15 Last Names Stayed the Same Since 1790.”
The files contain only the frequency of first names or last names and do not include information about specific individuals or first and last name combinations. The Census Bureau also uses statistical safeguards to protect the confidentiality of the underlying responses.
Access the full datasets and methodology of the most common first and last names from the 2020 Census on the census.govwebpage.
Visit the Census Name Data page linked from the Genealogy page.