In terms of frequency, ‘Singh’ grew by 60.7 percent, ‘Patel’ by 58.5 percent from the year 2000 to 2010
On the list of top 15 last names with the largest increase, Singh and Patel rank 10th and 14th, respectively, according to the United States Census Bureau. The Bureau recorded this growth in the frequency from the year 2000 till 2010, and released its report in December 2016.
Top 15 surnames with the percentage increase in frequency are Zhang (111.2 %), Li (93.4), Ali (66.3%), Liu (64.4%), Khan (63.1 %), Vazquez (62.9 %), Wang (62.6 %), Huang (61.8 %), Lin (61.1 %), Singh (60.7 %), Chen (60.7 %), Bautista (59.2 %), Velazquez (59.2%), Patel (58.5 %) and Wu (56.5 %).
The report recorded rising frequency of Asian and Latino surnames attributing it to their growth in population in the United States. “Some are unique or unique variations of more frequent names,” Joshua Comenetz, assistant chief of the Population Division’s Population Geography staff and manager of the surnames project, said in a news media statement.
Overall, the most popular last name in the US since 1990 is Smith (nearly 2.5 million occurrence); followed by Johnson (1.9 million occurrences) and Williams (1.6 million occurrences).
The report observed that despite the growing racial and ethnic diversity, the top five American surnames ( with Williams and Brown ranked 4th and 5th respectively) remained same since 1990.