ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The most popular last names in the U.S might be unchanged from the previous decade, but Asian surnames were the fastest-growing at the start of this decade, the U.S. Census Bureau said Tuesday.
Smith, Johnson, Williams, Brown and Jones remained the top five last names in the United States in 2020, as they were in 2010, according to a tally from the last U.S. head count. Most of the fastest-growing last names from 2010 to 2020 were Asian, according to the Census Bureau.
The top three of those were Zhang, Liu and Wang. In the 21st century, Asians have been the fastest-growing of the country’s largest racial or ethnic groups, and they now make up 7% of the U.S. population.
While Asian growth will continue to outpace overall U.S. growth, the immigration crackdown during the second Trump administration could slow down future expansion of that population in the United States, said Paul Ong, a public affairs professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“Much of the growth of the Asian population has been driven by immigrants and their children,” Ong said Tuesday. “Consequently, when Asians crack the top surname rank will be pushed further into the future.”
Rounding out the top 10 most common last names in 2020 were Garcia, Miller, Rodriguez, Davis and Martinez. The only change from 2010 was Rodriguez, which jumped ahead of Davis for the No. 8 spot.
There were 7.8 million unique last names, according to the Census Bureau.
The Census Bureau has tallied counts of the most common last names in each once-a-decade head count since 1990. The 2020 census was the first since 1990 to provide data on first names, although the Social Security Administration keeps a count of the most popular male and female first names for babies each year.
The census tally showed that the most popular male first names at the start of this decade were Michael, John, James, David and Robert, while the most common female first names were Mary, Maria, Jennifer, Elizabeth and Patricia.
Not too much has changed since 1990, though there was a little more variety for female names. Back then, the most popular male first names were James, John, Robert, Michael and William. The most popular female first names were Mary, Patricia, Linda, Barbara and Elizabeth.
“The names people choose are a function of what they are exposed to, so culture certainly plays a role, but so does social influence,” said Jonah Berger, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania. “People are constantly exposed to names of others around them, and that can shape not only which names they like, but also which ones they avoid.”
Unlike the Social Security Administration's count, the Census Bureau's tally includes everyone, not just newborns. Liam and Olivia have been the top names for babies over the last several years in the Social Security Administration's annual count.
The most popular first names were so different between the two federal agencies because the 2020 census captured people from all age groups, and not just newborns like the Social Security Administration's tally, said Michelle Napierski-Prancl, a sociologist at Russell Sage College in New York.
“So you have generations that were likely named Mary or John and follow more traditional family naming patterns or religious naming patterns," Napierski-Prancl said Tuesday.
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An earlier version of this story included misinterpreted data about the most common last names among various ethnic groups. Those paragraphs have been deleted.
Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social.
FILE - The toes of a baby are seen at DHR Health, July 29, 2020, in McAllen, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Diplomats worked through back channels on Tuesday to arrange a new round of talks between the United States and Iran after Washington enacted its blockade of Iranian ports, while Tehran threatened to retaliate by striking targets across the war-weary region.
U.S. President Donald Trump said a second round of talks could happen "over the next two days," telling the New York Post the negotiations could be held again in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres concurred, saying it’s “highly probable” that talks will restart. He cited a meeting he had with Pakistan’s deputy prime minister, Ishaq Dar.
Meanwhile in Washington, the first direct talks in decades between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the U.S. concluded on a productive note, according to the U.S. State Department.
Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter said the two countries are “on the same side of the equation” in “liberating Lebanon” from the militant Hezbollah group. Lebanese Ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad called the meeting “constructive” but urged an end to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. Since March, that war has displaced more than 1 million people in Lebanon.
Israel and Lebanon have technically been at war since Israel was established in 1948, and Lebanon remains deeply divided over diplomatic engagement with Israel.
Last weekend in Pakistan, an initial round of talks aimed at permanently ending the U.S.-Iran conflict failed to produce an agreement. The White House said Iran’s nuclear ambitions were a central sticking point.
A U.S. official said Tuesday that fresh talks with Iran were still under discussion and that nothing has been scheduled. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive negotiations.
Though the ceasefire appeared to hold, the showdown over the strategic Strait of Hormuz risked reigniting hostilities and deepening the regional war's economic fallout.
The war, now in its seventh week, has jolted markets and rattled the global economy as shipping has been cut off and airstrikes have torn through military and civilian infrastructure across the region.
The fighting has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, more than 2,100 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Thirteen U.S. service members have also been killed.
The blockade is intended to pressure Iran, which has exported millions of barrels of oil, mostly to Asia, since the war began on Feb. 28. Much of it has likely been carried by so-called dark transits that evade sanctions and oversight, providing cash flow that’s been vital to keeping Iran running.
U.S. Central Command said Tuesday no ships made it past the blockade in the first 24 hours, while six merchant vessels complied with direction from U.S. forces to turn around and re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman.
Tankers approaching the strait on Monday turned around shortly after the blockade took effect, though one reversed course again and transited the waterway.
The tanker Rich Starry had been waiting off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, according to shipping data firm Lloyd’s List, which cited data from the energy cargo-tracking firm Vortexa. It was not immediately clear whether the tanker had earlier docked in Iran. Yet it was listed by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control as linked to Iranian shipping.
Lloyd’s List, citing ship registry and tracking data, reported that the vessel is owned by a Chinese shipping company and was ultimately bound for China with a stopover in an Omani port, south of the strait. The vessel updated its broadcast signal on Tuesday evening to no longer show it was headed for Sohar, Oman, according to tracking data reported by maritime analytics firm MarineTraffic.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Chinese tankers will not be allowed passage through the strait. "So they're not going to be able to get their oil,” he told reporters Tuesday on the sidelines of IMF-World Bank meetings.
In rare public criticism seemingly directed at Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping said nations should “oppose the world’s retrogression to the law of the jungle.” Speaking during a reception for the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Xi said nations should work to “jointly safeguard genuine multilateralism.”
Since the start of the war, Iran has curtailed maritime traffic, with most commercial vessels avoiding the waterway. Tehran's effective closure of the strait, through which a fifth of global oil transits in peacetime, has sent oil prices skyrocketing, pushing up the cost of gasoline, food and other basic goods far beyond the Middle East.
Trump has said that Iran's control of the strait amounted to blackmail and extortion, and has threatened to destroy any Iranian military vessels that challenge the U.S. blockade. Iran has threatened to retaliate against Persian Gulf ports if attacked.
French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will co-chair a conference Friday for nations willing to deploy warships to escort oil tankers and container ships through the strait. The deployment will happen “when security conditions allow,” Macron’s office said Tuesday.
The Israel-Lebanon talks in Washington were “productive,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement, adding that “all sides agreed to launch direct negotiations at a mutually agreed time and venue.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who facilitated the talks, had downplayed expectations for any immediate agreement.
Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S, said after the talks that both countries saw eye-to-eye in several areas.
“The Lebanese government made it very clear that they will no longer be occupied by Hezbollah, and Iran has been weakened. Hezbollah is dramatically weakened,” he said. “This is an opportunity.”
Moawad, Lebanon's top U.S. envoy, said in a brief statement that she had called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah and the return home of Lebanese displaced by the fighting.
After the ceasefire in Iran, Israel pressed ahead with its air and ground campaign, insisting that the truce does not apply to fighting in Lebanon. It has, however, halted strikes in Beirut, the country’s capital since April 8, after a deadly bombardment that hit several crowded commercial and residential areas in central Beirut and killed more than 350 people in one day.
The deaths sparked an international outcry and threats by Iran that it would end the ceasefire.
Lebanese officials have pushed for a ceasefire. Israel has framed the negotiations around Hezbollah’s disarmament and a potential peace deal, without publicly committing to halting hostilities or withdrawing its forces.
Israel wants Lebanon’s government to assume responsibility for disarming Hezbollah, much as was envisaged in a November 2024 ceasefire. But the militant group has survived efforts to curb its strength for decades and said on Monday that it will not abide by any agreements that may result from the talks.
Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani, Matthew Lee, Fatima Hussein, Collin Binkley and Konstantin Toporin in Washington; Sylvie Corbet in Paris; Toqa Ezzidin in Cairo; Natalie Melzer in Jerusalem; Edith Lederer and Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations, and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter speaks with reporters outside of the State Department in Washington, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
A veiled woman walks through a mass grave where civilians and Hezbollah fighters killed by Israeli airstrikes are temporarily buried in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A man sits next to charred cars and wreckage where a building was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike the previous Wednesday, in central Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Damage is visible on a residential building that, according to Iranian authorities, was hit by a strike on March 4 during the U.S.-Israeli military campaign, in southeastern Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
FILE - Oil tankers and cargo ships line up in the Strait of Hormuz as seen from Khor Fakkan, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri,File)
Ahlam Badawi, 51, left, mother of Hassan Ali Badawi, 31, a paramedic of the Lebanese Red Cross killed in a Israeli strike, cries during his funeral in Choueifat, Lebanon, Monday, April 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A man flashes a victory sign as he carries an Iranian flag in front of an anti-U.S. billboard depicting the American aircrafts into the Iranian armed forces fishing net with signs that read in Farsi: "The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed, The entire Persian Gulf is our hunting ground," at the Eqelab-e-Eslami, or Islamic Revolution Square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman wears a badge with a portrait of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel strikes on Feb. 28, during a campaign in support of the government at the Enqelab-e-Eslami, or Islamic Revolution, Square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A man drives his motorbike with a poster on its windshield depicting Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, top, and his father, the slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel strikes on Feb. 28, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
President Donald Trump speaks outside the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, April 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
