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Well one thing about Australia it is not very common for people to have one single ethnicity. It is very very common to hear Australians have more than one single ethnicity that is not entirely British Isles, especially for places such as Sydney and Melbourne. Of course in Perth you are much more likely to have people of British background compared to the Eastern Cities, yet it is the eastern cities where most of Australia population lives.
In the US it is the Southern States and Utah where the white people are more predominately British background compared to other regions in the US.
Yes, that's why I never really take too much notice of someone's surname here. You just can't tell what their ethnic background is with any certainty. I watched the Australian edition of "Who do you think you are" recently, and it really brought home just how mixed the average Aussie is.
How much "German" constitutes "German ancestry" though? Similarly for groups like the Italian speaking Swiss in Victoria - they are pretty obvious when you see the names of people in that region; or the old Italian influence in parts of coastal Qld that is pretty inescapable. I think you need to remember just how small the population of Australia was at that time.
Its funny, but in terms of North America, Canada struck me as a very "British" place; the political system (of all the former British colonies, only Canada has retained a UK House of Lords style body in its political system, or kept the UK style pageantry out side Parliament), the sense of reserved "politeness", the accent (very strong Scottish influence), attitudes towards the monarchy (which really surprised me), and a lot of other things. But I suspect those things are not perceived by Canadians as essentially "British". For example, Canada has Mount Logan which is probably seen as a "Canadian"name, the US has Mt McKinley (perceived as an American name, presumably), while we have Mount Kosciuszko, which is the "British" influence? Similarly, while Canada has Hudson's Bay, and the US has Sears, our largest department store chain was named after after it's founder, Simcha Myer Baevski - a 19th century Russian/Belarussion immigrant.
I am not doubting that Australia is influenced by other cultures than the Brits (Though I thought that the Britishness of Australia is quite charming myself), but I am just thinking that it's quite a bit heavier than that of US and even Canada. Especially when it comes to the foundation and settlement of the country, it seems that both the US and Canada have had greater influences from other source countries (German, French, Scandinavians... etc) than Britain. Not saying that Australia doesn't have its share of German influences, but relatively it's smaller.
In terms of names, I think there's a big difference between Australia and US/Canada. Just look at place names in the midwestern states or the prairie provinces. I think there are a lot more towns and geographical names of non-British and non-Native origins than for example South Australia (but perhaps I need to look closer at that region and perhaps have some comparison between those regions). As for the second example you gave (retail), two examples I have off the top of my head is Nordstrom and Simons, both prominant Department stores of non-British origin in US and Canada respectively.
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Originally Posted by other99
Well one thing about Australia it is not very common for people to have one single ethnicity. It is very very common to hear Australians have more than one single ethnicity that is not entirely British Isles, especially for places such as Sydney and Melbourne. Of course in Perth you are much more likely to have people of British background compared to the Eastern Cities, yet it is the eastern cities where most of Australia population lives.
In the US it is the Southern States and Utah where the white people are more predominately British background compared to other regions in the US.
Isn't it the same case in both US and Canada? Their statistics do suggest that it is common for people to have multiple ancestries as well. I haven't look specially into certain area though (like the Southern States). But even though they may be less "diverse" in terms of ancestries compared to other states I would think that they're fairly diverse as well.
Well one thing about Australia it is not very common for people to have one single ethnicity. It is very very common to hear Australians have more than one single ethnicity that is not entirely British Isles, especially for places such as Sydney and Melbourne. Of course in Perth you are much more likely to have people of British background compared to the Eastern Cities, yet it is the eastern cities where most of Australia population lives.
In the US it is the Southern States and Utah where the white people are more predominately British background compared to other regions in the US.
Yes I guess it is becoming more common for Australians to have multiple ancestries especially as in the last 40-50 years there has been people from a lot of different countries. The older generation of Australians were definitely more British/Irish descent in the majority but even then there were some that had ancestors from Germany, Switzerland, even places like China. I've met a few Australians that have had some Chinese ancestry which was not at all obvious.
In terms of names, I think there's a big difference between Australia and US/Canada. Just look at place names in the midwestern states or the prairie provinces. I think there are a lot more towns and geographical names of non-British and non-Native origins than for example South Australia (but perhaps I need to look closer at that region and perhaps have some comparison between those regions).
The place names in New England in the US seem pretty, well, "English" to me... And Windsor Ontario doesn't seem much different to Windsor NSW.
But most place names in my part of NSW are Aboriginal in origin, but I'm not sure what the real reason for that is. Perhaps settlers looked at the land and realised that European names just didn't "fit".
Whatever the US and Australia were in the past they will both be a mixture in the future. Everyone will have multiple ancestries from all over the place. A lot of European countries will be the same. To be from one ancestry will be rare.
The place names in New England in the US seem pretty, well, "English" to me... And Windsor Ontario doesn't seem much different to Windsor NSW.
But most place names in my part of NSW are Aboriginal in origin, but I'm not sure what the real reason for that is. Perhaps settlers looked at the land and realised that European names just didn't "fit".
Yeah but look outside of New England (which is a small part of USA in terms of population and area) one may find plenty of place names of non-British or native origin. Again like I said probably the same for Australia but in a smaller scale. Someone has mentioned it before, large scale European immigrants came much later than that of North America so they don't necessarily had the same impact as the German/Scandinavian/Eastern European settlers that exist in a large part of US and Canada. I wouldn't think there would be much of a debate about the level of German influences in Australia vs USA, or how the British influences are greater in Australia than the majority of USA. Just look at sports for example. US and Canada (gridiron football, baseball, ice hockey...) pretty much do their own thing, wheras Australia is a huge rival to England in multiple sports (rugby league, cricket...).
And the official statistics do suggest that there are more British descendants proportionally in Australia than both of that of Canada and USA.
But it is nice to see settlers respecting the origins of native settlers. Many great places names are of Native origin.
They all appear fairly similar except that American had the slave trade and also recent Mexican immigration.
Though if you look at the other European ancestries, they have larger representations in both US and Canada with a handful of exceptions (like Maltese). The majority of the non-British, major European diaspora groups before the wars (such as Norway, Sweden, France, Germany), Australia was never a major emigration destination the way that US were. If you check out the reported ancestries for those groups I think the contrast is more apparent.
The place names in New England in the US seem pretty, well, "English" to me... And Windsor Ontario doesn't seem much different to Windsor NSW.
But most place names in my part of NSW are Aboriginal in origin, but I'm not sure what the real reason for that is. Perhaps settlers looked at the land and realised that European names just didn't "fit".
Well the wider east coast has English names. It's when you get west of the coast states, except Florida, that French, Spanish and indigenous names start to get thrown into the mix. Even some places in my state have French names
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Similarly for groups like the Italian speaking Swiss in Victoria - they are pretty obvious when you see the names of people in that region; or the old Italian influence in parts of coastal Qld that is pretty inescapable. I think you need to remember just how small the population of Australia was at that time.
