Most Common Surnames in the USA & Canada [OC]

Posted by Fluid-Decision6262

20 comments
  1. I have never actually met anyone with the surname Smith, I’ve met a few MacDonalds and Trembleys, though. (In Ontario)

  2. you can literally trace migration patterns here – british roots dominating the north, spanish influence hugging the southwest, and french pockets still holding out in quebec and the maritimes. history in one map

  3. Pretty sure Li is number one in Canada, but it’s split between Li and Lee, so Smith comes up the middle.

  4. [https://www.ancestry.com/c/ancestry-blog/whats-the-most-popular-surname-in-your-state](https://www.ancestry.com/c/ancestry-blog/whats-the-most-popular-surname-in-your-state) – USA

    [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_most_common_surnames_in_North_American_countries#By_province](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_most_common_surnames_in_North_American_countries#By_province) – Canada

    The USA & Canada both have a wide variety of surnames in their databases as a result of shared histories with British settler colonialism and subsequent mass immigration from around the world. Unsurprisingly, Smith is the most common surname in the US and Canada but here are the most common surnames in both countries.

    **USA:**

    1. Smith (2.5 million) – English origin
    2. Johnson (2 million) – English origin
    3. Williams (1.6 million) – Welsh origin
    4. Brown (1.5 million) – English origin
    5. Jones (1.4 million) – Welsh origin
    6. Garcia (1.2 million) – Spanish origin
    7. Miller (1.1 million) – English origin
    8. Rodriguez (1.09 million) – Spanish origin
    9. Martinez (1.06 million) – Spanish origin
    10. Hernandez (1.04 million) – Spanish origin

    **Canada:**

    1. Smith (192k) – English origin
    2. Brown (109k) – English origin
    3. Tremblay (107k) – French origin
    4. Martin (92k) – English & French origin
    5. Roy (90k) – French origin
    6. Gagnon (85k) – French origin
    7. Lee (83k) – English & Chinese origin
    8. Wilson (82k) – Scottish origin
    9. Johnson (79k) – English origin
    10. MacDonald (78k) – Scottish origin

  5. IIRC like 4/10 of the most common last names in Manitoba are due to Mennonite influence

  6. Nova Scotian here, MacDonald is a pretty common surname.

    Although my region has probably an equal amount of Leblancs

  7. Wait isn’t the biggest ancestory German in the US. Lol why is it smith not schmeid

  8. These colours are a bit hard. At first I thought Williams was somehow common in Quebec! I don’t know much about map colouring (except the graph theoretic problem!) so I’m not sure how to make it clearer that there are different reds at a glance.

  9. Ah. So this is why California and Texas teamed up in that Civil War movie: the Garcias were uniting.

  10. So cool that echos of the Acadian expulsion is still seen in Louisiana.

  11. Manitoba makes sense, i would be Friesen too out there cuz its cold!

  12. I have literally never met a Smith in my whole damn life. 

  13. I don’t know where these Smith’s are. I just opened my work address book. Among ~4000 employees, there’s only 4 of them.

  14. Can comment on the Johnson states – lots of Norwegians and Swedes changed their names from “Johansson” back in the day.

  15. In the customer name folder you had a seperate section just for the mc/mac

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