The most common Asian American surnames
More than 480,000 Asian Americans share the last name Nguyen. It's the most common Asian American surname in the country by a wide margin, and if you've ever seen a Nguyen and wondered how one name got so common, the short answer is Vietnam, 1975, and a wave of refugees who reshaped the American phone book.
Here are the surnames carried by the most Asian Americans, ranked by the number of Asian holders. The last column shows what share of everyone with that name is Asian, which is where the list gets interesting.
| Rank | Surname | Asian holders | Share Asian |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nguyen | 507,213 | 95.4% |
| 2 | Lee | 305,384 | 43.9% |
| 3 | Patel | 290,005 | 93.8% |
| 4 | Kim | 257,177 | 93.8% |
| 5 | Chen | 223,126 | 95.4% |
| 6 | Tran | 213,064 | 95.4% |
| 7 | Wang | 160,724 | 94.6% |
| 8 | Li | 159,133 | 96.0% |
| 9 | Singh | 139,576 | 85.3% |
| 10 | Yang | 133,622 | 96.0% |
| 11 | Le | 131,644 | 95.0% |
| 12 | Liu | 121,269 | 95.3% |
Lee is the odd one out, and the share column shows why. It has the second-most Asian holders of any surname, more than 305,000, but Asians are less than half of all the Lees in America. The name is also common among English and African American families. Every other name on this list is held by Asian Americans more than 85 percent of the time.
Three countries, three stories
Nguyen, Tran, and Le are Vietnamese, and their place near the top is recent history. Before the fall of Saigon in 1975 these names were rare in the United States. The refugee resettlement that followed, and the families who came after, made Nguyen the runaway leader it is today, held by more Asian Americans than the next two names combined.
Kim and Yang trace to Korea, and Wang, Chen, Li, and Liu to China, names that arrived across a longer span but concentrated after 1965, when the United States lifted the national-origin quotas that had nearly shut off Asian immigration for forty years. Patel and Singh are South Asian: Patel is a Gujarati name so tied to Indian American life that it became shorthand for the community's success in the motel business, and Singh is carried by nearly every Sikh man as a religious surname.
Almost none of these names were common in America before 1965, because the immigration system was built to keep the people who carry them out. Their spots near the top of the list are a direct measure of how much that changed. For the full national picture, see the most common last names in America, where Smith still leads and Nguyen has climbed into the top 40 overall. You can look up how many people share any surname at our names hub.
Sources
Counts are the number of Asian and Pacific Islander holders of each surname, from the U.S. Census Bureau surname files, which report how many people carry each name and the share who identify with each group. The full ranked list is at most common Asian surnames.
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What is the most common Asian American surname?
Nguyen is the most common Asian American surname, carried by about 507,000 Asian holders, according to Census Bureau surname data. It far outpaces the next names on the list and reflects the Vietnamese refugee resettlement that followed the fall of Saigon in 1975.
Why is Lee considered an Asian surname if many Lees aren't Asian?
Lee has the second-most Asian holders of any surname, more than 305,000, which is why it ranks high. But those holders are fewer than half of all the Lees in America, because the name is also common among English and African American families. Every other name in the top 12 is held by Asian Americans more than 85 percent of the time.
Why did Asian surnames become common in America so recently?
Because US immigration law kept most Asian immigrants out until 1965, when the Hart-Celler Act lifted the national-origin quotas. Vietnamese names spread after the 1975 refugee resettlement, and Chinese, Korean, and South Asian names grew after 1965, so most of these surnames were rare in the country before then.
