The Asian Pacific Islander Surname List: As Developed from Census 2000

• Activity Number: 13
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 11, 2002 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods*
• Author(s): Matthew Falkenstein*+
• Affiliation(s): U.S. Census Bureau
• Keywords: Race ; Ethnicity

Abstract

The Census Bureau has previously released a Hispanic Surname list based on past decennial censuses. There is a demand for a similar list based on the Census Asian and Pacific Islander (API) race characterization. The research discussed herein has produced a surname list for the API race derived from Census 2000 data.

We calculated the strength of association to each API race/ethnicity by dividing each surname count for each race by the total count for each surname. The next step was to sum all of the Asian and Pacific Islander ethnic values for each surname. We used a quintile category scheme to describe the relative strength of association that each surname has to the API race category: "Heavily API," "Generally API," "Moderately API," "Occasionally API," and "Rarely API." We then re-sorted the list by surname frequency of occurrence within each API quintile.

Many surnames occur only once, possibly due to errors in spelling and very rare names. This is reflected in the very high total surname count of 9.12 million. After separating out the surnames with a frequency of occurrence of 100 or less, the surname count drops to 156,000.