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Author Jesse Washington states in the article linked above: "Washington was listed 138th when the Census Bureau published a list of the 1,000 most common American surnames from the 2000 survey, along with ethnic data. The project was not repeated in 2010." Actually, the project was repeated for the 2010 Census. At the time that this article was written (in 2011), not all of the census information had yet been compiled.
I have a surnames database file from the 2010 U.S. Federal Census, and I've used Excel to sort the following statistics, for anyone interested. These statistics represent the top ten surnames for both Black and White families enumerated in the United States in the year 2010, out of a field of the overall top 1,000 surnames found in the 2010 Census.
The top 10 Black surnames, with their percentages, are:
WASHINGTON 87.53%
JEFFERSON 74.24%
BOOKER 65.22%
BANKS 54.51%
JOSEPH 54.19%
MOSLEY 53.16%
JACKSON 53.04%
CHARLES 52.96%
DORSEY 52.16%
RIVERS 50.93%
The top 10 White surnames, with their percentages are:
YODER 97.77%
FRIEDMAN 96.05%
KRUEGER 95.97%
SCHWARTZ 95.93%
SCHMITT 95.68%
MUELLER 95.66%
WEISS 95.58%
NOVAK 95.47%
OCONNELL 95.42%
KLEIN 95.41%
Notice that the top White surnames are primarily Germanic in origin, whereas the top Black surnames are primarily English in origin. European immigration to the U.S. over the centuries since the founding of this nation is most likely the reason why these non-English surnames are mostly representative of White families.
In the year 1790, when the United States conducted its first census, the surnames Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson weren't even among the most popular White family names to begin with. So when Black families adopted those names for themselves (due to the historical connections of names such as Washington and Jefferson, mentioned in the linked article above) this increased the likelihood of these names, with population growth over the succeeding years, gaining a higher percentage among Black families.
So, in answer to the OP's question... White Americans did not "stop using" these surnames. The racial percentages merely changed over the years due to immigration, population growth, and the fact that these "White" surnames were not among the most popular in use by White families in the year 1790 (when the first U.S. Federal Census was conducted).
I would not have guessed those last names. I’m a teacher and the top 10 white surnames are not common here.
Rachel, it would be very interesting to see stats for not just the top 1000 across the US.
Every time I see "most common surname" in the US, it's always Smith, but I don't even know anyone named Smith- ha ha!
Or how about by state? I've never heard of a Rhode Island Yoder for example.... we might have one or two???
Author Jesse Washington states in the article linked above: "Washington was listed 138th when the Census Bureau published a list of the 1,000 most common American surnames from the 2000 survey, along with ethnic data. The project was not repeated in 2010." Actually, the project was repeated for the 2010 Census. At the time that this article was written (in 2011), not all of the census information had yet been compiled.
I have a surnames database file from the 2010 U.S. Federal Census, and I've used Excel to sort the following statistics, for anyone interested. These statistics represent the top ten surnames for both Black and White families enumerated in the United States in the year 2010, out of a field of the overall top 1,000 surnames found in the 2010 Census.
The top 10 Black surnames, with their percentages, are:
WASHINGTON 87.53%
JEFFERSON 74.24%
BOOKER 65.22%
BANKS 54.51%
JOSEPH 54.19%
MOSLEY 53.16%
JACKSON 53.04%
CHARLES 52.96%
DORSEY 52.16%
RIVERS 50.93%
The top 10 White surnames, with their percentages are:
YODER 97.77%
FRIEDMAN 96.05%
KRUEGER 95.97%
SCHWARTZ 95.93%
SCHMITT 95.68%
MUELLER 95.66%
WEISS 95.58%
NOVAK 95.47%
OCONNELL 95.42%
KLEIN 95.41%
Notice that the top White surnames are primarily Germanic in origin, whereas the top Black surnames are primarily English in origin. European immigration to the U.S. over the centuries since the founding of this nation is most likely the reason why these non-English surnames are mostly representative of White families.
In the year 1790, when the United States conducted its first census, the surnames Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson weren't even among the most popular White family names to begin with. So when Black families adopted those names for themselves (due to the historical connections of names such as Washington and Jefferson, mentioned in the linked article above) this increased the likelihood of these names, with population growth over the succeeding years, gaining a higher percentage among Black families.
So, in answer to the OP's question... White Americans did not "stop using" these surnames. The racial percentages merely changed over the years due to immigration, population growth, and the fact that these "White" surnames were not among the most popular in use by White families in the year 1790 (when the first U.S. Federal Census was conducted).
That's interesting about the most popular white surnames. I can honestly say that in twenty years of living in Texas, I dont think Ive ever met anyone (white or otherwise) with the surname of Yoder or Schmitt. Like other posters have pointed out, these are German names, perhaps they didnt move to Texas in great numbers.
Arent Klein, Schwartz, Friedman, and Yoder jewish names? If so, then whites must have so many different surnames, none get used too often.
Yoder is actually more commonly found among the Amish. Many of the same surnames are shared by both Germans and Ashkenazi Jews, so one can't really tell if someone is Jewish by their name alone. In fact, the names Miller and Gordon are very commonly found as surnames used by Jews, but most people don't associate those names with Jewishness.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollytree
Rachel, it would be very interesting to see stats for not just the top 1000 across the US.
Every time I see "most common surname" in the US, it's always Smith, but I don't even know anyone named Smith- ha ha!
Or how about by state? I've never heard of a Rhode Island Yoder for example.... we might have one or two???
I do have the complete database of surnames from the 2010 Census, but I used only the top 1000 surnames to find the "Top Ten" by racial percentages because the vast number of American surnames is not really shared by as significant a number of families as are the top 1000. And, yes, the surname Smith is still #1 -- and (similar to your own experience) I've only ever known one person by that name! This is due to the fact that, though there are many Smiths out there, we may not encounter them within our own social bubbles.
While the U.S. Census Bureau doesn't break down the surnames by state, the U.S. Social Security Administration (which compiles annual lists of popular names given to babies) does break down their lists by State for at least the top names in each State.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spazkat9696
I would not have guessed those last names. I’m a teacher and the top 10 white surnames are not common here.
Those top ten White surnames aren't in my top ten list because they are common names. They are in my list because they happen to be the top surnames (out of the top 1000) with the highest percentage of use by White families in the U.S. Hope that clarification helps!
This site lists completely different most common last names by race, but these are more in line with what I see on a daily basis.
I'm not certain on what criteria that site you linked based their rankings for Most Common Surnames for Black People in the United States. The statistics I provided ranks the surnames according to total percentage of identified race for each surname (in order to answer the OP's question). If you look again at the ranking from that link and scan down the column for percentages, you'll see that the actual top Black surname by percentage is Washington, and so on.
Okay, big slave owners who made more slave babies than legit babies. Kind of a math thing, right?
Not exactly. Your assumption is based on a belief that enslaved offspring automatically received the surnames of slave-owners, when in actuality the enslaved had no names but the first names by which the slave-owners chose to call them. Or that enslaved people were likely to adopt for themselves the surnames of those who had enslaved them, when in actuality they were more likely to adopt the surnames of historical figures, such as President Washington and President Jefferson, or any other surname that appealed to them.
If the original culture and language of Black Americans of the 19th century hadn't been lost due to generations of enslavement, the newly freed probably would have adopted names of African origin for themselves.
Okay, big slave owners who made more slave babies than legit babies. Kind of a math thing, right?
It is a math thing, but not in the way you're suggesting.
1. Just because a former slave adopted the surname of his former owner does not necessarily mean that owner was his father.
2. Many former slaves did not take the surname of their former owner - as mentioned by at least two people already, they often adopted the surname of historical figures like our founding fathers.
3. Not every white person with the surname Washington, Jackson, Jefferson, etc was a slave owner, or related to/descended from the presidents.
But essentially, the math part comes into play more like this: there were more former slaves who adopted the surnames of our founding fathers than there were white people with those surnames having white babies.
I’m guessing a strong link to German Jews coming here along with a sizable Jewish population in German-speaking countries before Hittie the Hun came along.
Jews were expelled from German speaking countries, and most of Western Europe in general, long before Hitler. I believe only 3% of Jews who perished in the Holocaust were of German origin, simply because there weren't that many of them to begin with. Very large numbers of expelled Jews ended up settling in the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, which was a multicultural and tolerant society, but kept their Yiddish language and Germanic names. The Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth eventually became part of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires and after the Tsar's May laws many Jews left for the United States; additional Jewish immigrants left Austro-Hungarian Galicia due to poverty. That's the origin story of most of the Germanic Jewish names in America, and they arrived mainly in the late 19th century and early 20th century as a component of the larger overall European immigration waves.
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