Michael, John, James, David

Leading off today's (brief) round-up of news is the Census Bureau's decennial list of the most frequent names in the US. The top 5 are all boy's names: Michael (3.4 million), John, James, David, and Robert (2.8 million). The most popular women's name, Mary, comes in at #7 overall with 1.8 million. The Census reports,

Eight of the top 15 last names in 1790, 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020 have stayed in the top 15 since the first census in 1790. The names are Brown, Davis, Johnson, Jones, Miller, Smith, Williams and Wilson.

So, extrapolating, it's likely the most common name in the US is John Brown. However,

The most notable change over time in the top 15 surnames is the addition of predominantly Hispanic last names. Since 2000, six Hispanic last names have joined the top 15. They are Garcia, Gonzalez, Hernandez, Lopez, Martinez and Rodriguez.

The More You Know!

As a fellow David, I approve of this. Here in Britain, sadly, David fell out of the top 10 given names for baby boys back in the 1980s. By 1996, it was number 32, and in 2024 (the last year for which data are available from the ONS) it was at 64.