{A post by Joe.}
A while back somehow I got interested in finding out about common last names. That is, why do we assume that "Smith" is the most generic American last name?I found my way to the List of Most Common Surnames in North America, and see that Smith still has a heft lead by about 20% over Johnson. I can't say that I know a bunch of Smith's though. I had a friend in High School Marching Band, a friend growing up at church as a kid, I work with one, and know there's a family at church now with that surname... but that's all that comes to the top of my head.
More interesting to me is satisfying my vanity and finding out more about "Jackson". Looks like between the 1990 census and 2000 census, it dropped a few places (from 13 to 18) because of the increase in common names like Garcia, Rodrigues, Martinez, and Hernandez. Oh, and Martin. But Martin is neck-and-neck with Jackson, so it's not like we just got blasted out of the water by the Martins. We can still catch up with them!
Back to the statistics. Looks like out of 100,000 people, about 247 will have the surname of Jackson. That's about the same statistic as the number of Mormons who live in the towns covered by our ward boundaries. Coincidence? I think not. I am just as likely to be a Jackson as I am to be a Mormon.
Here's what I didn't expect: of the Jacksons, about 42% are white and 53% are black. I had no idea!? I mean, my whole life people have been asking me about my cousin Michael, but I just figured Jackson was as British as it gets.
Then I sit and think, and there's Samuel L, Jesse, the Five, Randy, Bo. On the other hand there are Andrew, Stonewall, Joe, Shoeless, Peter, Phil. There are hundreds more that someone thought was famous enough to make a wikipedia page about (and if I were more well-rounded, I would know about more of them).
If I did a bit more research, I would probably find that Jackson is more common in the south, and that African Americans assumed the name of their owner during the slave-holding era. (A potential source: claims that lots of Jacksons live in order of poularity -- Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, as well as Lousiana.)
Bonus question: What do Utah and Maine have in common?
Answer: See here.
No. 3 on that list of most common surnames was the most prevalent in our old ward. There were 3 or 4 different Williams families at one time, and none of them were related! That is interesting that the majority of Jacksons are black, and it seems like most of the famous Jacksons alive today are black, while most of the white famous Jacksons lived long ago.
ReplyDeleteWe have a new little family in our ward, the man is named Mark Allen. He is from England and he said Allen was NOT common in England ( while I would have thought it was). Spencer's very short term boss was named Mark Allen.
ReplyDeletePeople in Portugal always made reference to famous black Jacksons when they first saw my name tag. Also I've had people suggest that my first name is a "black" name as well. There is a semi-famous "Shar Jackson" (Brittney Spears' ex's ex).
ReplyDeleteIn the end we belong to the Jones line, though, I guess? Fascinating names. I always dreamt of marrying into a very unique last name. Harper is about as 'normal' as Jackson, so ...well. Here I sit...normal schmormal.
Perhaps a Jones turned into a Jackson, but certainly not on this side of the pond. (I don't know that the claim can be substantiated until further documentation surfaces anyway.)
DeleteI've always felt pretty much like I owned the name "Joseph Jackson" only discovering in college that there were others by the same name. Funny the little world that we lived in as children, eh?