James Smith holds the top spot on MyNameStats.com's Top 20 Most Popular Full Names List. It is estimated that there are 43,712 people with this name in the US. That is roughly 2,000 more people than the next most popular name David Smith. In all there are 589,536 people in the United States that have a name that appears on this list. That translates to 176 people in every 100k Americans or 0.2% of the population.
Top 20 Full Names
- PosFull NamePopulation
- 1JAMES SMITH43,712
- 2DAVID SMITH
41,353 - 3ROBERT SMITH
33,743 - 4JOHN SMITH
32,559 - 5MARIA GARCIA
32,141 - 6MICHAEL SMITH
31,268 - 7JAMES JOHNSON
30,474 - 8DAVID JOHNSON
29,903 - 9MARIA RODRIGUEZ
28,891 - 10MARY SMITH
27,860 - 11MARIA HERNANDEZ
27,618 - 12CHARLES SMITH
26,838 - 13MARIA MARTINEZ
26,527 - 14ROBERT JOHNSON
26,509 - 15JAMES WILLIAMS
25,937 - 16JAMES BROWN
25,789 - 17JOSE GARCIA
25,640 - 18MARIA GONZALEZ
24,665 - 19JOSE RODRIGUEZ
24,651 - 20DAVID BROWN
23,458 Last Names in the Top 20 Full Names
Pos Last name Count Percent Rank as Last Name 1 SMITH 7 35% 1 2 JOHNSON 3 15% 2 3 BROWN 2 10% 4 4 GARCIA 2 10% 11 5 RODRIGUEZ 2 10% 15 6 WILLIAMS 1 5% 3 7 MARTINEZ 1 5% 18 8 HERNANDEZ 1 5% 21 9 GONZALEZ 1 5% 27 Last Names in the Top 20 Full Names
Pos First name Count Percent Rank as First Name 1 MARIA 5 25% 18 2 JAMES 4 20% 2 3 DAVID 3 15% 3 4 ROBERT 2 10% 4 5 JOSE 2 10% 42 6 JOHN 1 5% 1 7 MICHAEL 1 5% 5 8 MARY 1 5% 6 9 CHARLES 1 5% 9 Family Names
The Smith family name dominates the list, this names hold the top four spots and seven out of the top 20 spots. It should come as no surprise that Smith also ranks first on the Top 20 Last Names List. Only a select few family names appear on the list, there are only nine unique family names to be exact. Pie chart below show the breakdown.
Given Names
As with the family names, there are only nine unique given names and it is Maria that appears the most often. Unlike Smith, Maria does not top the list of most popular first names, it is 18th.
The Smith family name dominates the list. The name holds the top four spots and seven out of the top 20 spots on the list. It should come as no surprise that Smith also ranks first on the Top 20 Last Names List. Only a select few family names appear on the list, only nine unique family names to be exact.
Race and Ethnicity
Of the twenty full names, seven have family names that are characterized as strongly Hispanic (i.e.: more than 90% percent of the people with these names are of Hispanic origin). The remaining names in the list reflect the general population. Five out of the nine unique last names are hispanic and the first name Maria is paired with each of these five. This is notable because Hispanic Americans represent 16.3% of the general population where as they represent 32% of the 589,536 people included in the top 20 list. This over representation is due in large part to the naming traditions of Hispanic Americans for which there is less diversity in the names. As a result more people end up with the same first and last name combination. This page provides more information about the last names associated with the first name Maria .
John Smith
Showing that James Smith is the most popular full name in America goes against the widely held misconception that the name John Smith should hold this top spot. This is not to say that John Smith is not popular, it ranks 4th, it simply isn't the most popular name. So why the misconception? Has the name been displaced from the top spot? We do not have sufficient historical data to determine whether or not, at one time, it has held the top spot. It is very possible that it has. However, the most likely explanation is that since the first name John has dominated the top of the first names list for years (as reported by US Census Bureau) as has the family name Smith, it is only natural to assume that the combination of John and Smith must dominate the full names list. Moreover there has been very little data available to support or disprove this claim. Now with the data and insight provided by MyNameStats.com we can refute this claim and state confidently, backed by solid evidence, that James Smith is the most popular full name in America.
- 3ROBERT SMITH