Talk:Lists of most common surnames in North American countries

Anglo-American surnames
Non-British descendants @ African-Americans? Most African-Americans are pretty British in ancestry.. actually often more so than other white Americans.. the average African-American is 30% European and most of that comes from the British Isles.

U.S. table sorting broken
The U.S. table sorts by the column to the left of the one you are clicking on; I put a note at Help talk:Sorting in the hopes that a sorting expert can fix this bug. -- Beland (talk) 08:21, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I suspect the problem was caused by the use of a grouping header row. I removed that for accessibility (see below) but the removal also appears to have fixed the sorting in all columns except Change. That one sorts on the proper column, but not in the correct sequence. Thisisnotatest (talk) 06:14, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

2010 Census Data
When will this list be modified to include the 2010 Census data? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.179.9.152 (talk) 00:01, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Accessibility of table
This table previously had a grouping row at its head. Since table cells were not properly marked per WCAG 2.0 AA to make a complex table accessible to blind people, I boldly removed the grouping row, making it a simple table.

Aside from that, the table incorrectly stated that it contained the top 100 names for 1990 and 2000. That was incorrect. Since a number of new names entered the top 100 list in 2000, the list was missing the same number of 1990 names that had dropped off.

Please see WP:ACCESSIBILITY

Thisisnotatest (talk) 00:04, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:List of most common surnames in Asia which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 08:00, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Canada
Based on some quick research elsewhere, this appears to be a list of the common surnames of the province of Quebec not the country of Canada. 207.170.18.20 (talk) 20:08, 22 May 2015 (UTC)


 * It would be great if data for the rest of Canada (beyond the province of Quebec) appeared on this page. --FitzKirou (talk) 18:33, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

The list given for Canada on this page is absolutely not limited to Quebec, although I'd be curious to know its origin.

This is the Quebec list: http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/statistiques/population-demographie/caracteristiques/noms_famille_1000.htm

zadcat (talk) 05:59, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Cuba
Lopez is listed twice in the table 199.116.171.111 (talk) 18:17, 30 July 2015 (UTC) Afzes

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Requested move 25 September 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved although from the discussion there appears to be a case for switching to List of most common family names in North America (perhaps; this is not a recommendation for or against) — JFG talk 13:19, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

List of most common surnames in North America → List of most common last names in North America – North America, hence American English. SST flyer  11:15, 25 September 2016 (UTC) CN¥
 * Oppose. Every surname article is at a title that says "surname", not "last name". What about Canada or any of the other North American places? I don't see any evidence that "surname" isn't in common use there. Nohomersryan (talk) 12:44, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose. "Last name" can be ambiguous as to its topic since some languages and cultures use a different name order. "Surname" is perfectly understandable in any variety of English and should be preferred for specificity in every such title. Also, of course "North America" includes Canada and Canadian English - just a minor point. 64.105.98.115 (talk) 03:31, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Support according to this, "last name" is in fact more commonly used in North America vs "surname". Speaking from experience I've pretty much never seen "surname" used, although "family name" is sometimes. People from countries where the family name is first end up inverting the order of their names if they come to the US or Canada.--Prisencolin (talk) 21:08, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment I think using "American English" for Canada is the wrong idea. However, Canadian English also uses 'last names'; but "surname" is not exactly the same, especially in contexts of foreign names that appear in English language print. There are also Canadian traditions dealing with last names and surnames that are not exactly congruent with this. that family name is also used is probably the better choice if we are avoiding "surname", though I do acknowledge the prominence of "last name" in Canadian English -- 65.94.171.217 (talk) 05:41, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose. In Quebec (French-speaking) they use "family name". Latin America (Spanish-speaking) commonly has two surnames, thus a "first surname" and a "last surname", making "last name" a bit ambiguous. "Last name" is too US-centric, and there is no compelling reason to deviate from the primary word for this, as defined by the title of the surname article. It took a lot of work to merge the content fork at Family name into that article, so we should be cautious about embracing variants of the primary term. As soon as we have an article about the most common "last names", someone will think, hey, we need an article about "last name" too! – wbm1058 (talk) 15:42, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Canada
I've removed the country-wide data for Canada. It was added in 2015 but was not sourced. It has been tagged as needing sources for 20 months. Enough.

I've tried to find a reliable source for this but have been unsuccessful. The available sources do not agree, and are not entirely reliable since even the best of them is only based on such things as the frequency of surnames in phone books. Meters (talk) 21:30, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

A lot of mistakes in this article.
This statement here:

" British surnames such as Williams, Jackson, Robinson, Harris, Davis, Brown and Jones are also common among people of non-British descent, such as African Americans due to slavery.[citation needed]"

does not need a citation. This isn't a controversial statement - everyone knows the descendants of slaves carry these names.

Also, a lot of the surname origins are only partially correct. The Brown (surname), Williams (surname), Smith (surname), and Davis (surname) have different origins other than English. Both Brown and Smith have separate Irish origins as well, while Williams has French and Italian origins. And I'm pretty sure Davis is a Welsh name, which isn't the same as English. The multiple origins of these names boost the frequency with which they appear among Americans.

There are many other examples, but let's start with these for now.Jonathan f1 (talk) 07:13, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Texas has gone too far
There is absolutely no reason to give Texas its own name section. I am deleting it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.189.108.103 (talk) 15:42, 19 November 2021 (UTC)