Most Common Surnames in the USA & Canada [OC]

    by Fluid-Decision6262

    17 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. Connect-Speaker on

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

    4. Fluid-Decision6262 on

      [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. UnsorryCanadian on

      Nova Scotian here, MacDonald is a pretty common surname.

      Although my region has probably an equal amount of Leblancs

    6. 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.

    7. ArgumentativeNerfer on

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

    8. 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.

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