Asian American ethnic identification by surname

Few data sources include ethnicity-level classification for Asian Americans. However, it is often more informative to study the ethnic groups separately than to use an aggregate Asian American category, because of differences in immigration history, socioeconomic status, health, and culture. Many types of records that include surnames of persons offer the potential for inferential ethnic classification. This paper describes the development of surname lists for six major Asian American ethnic groups: Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Asian Indian, and Vietnamese. The lists were based on Social Security Administration records that include country of birth. After they were compiled, the lists were evaluated using an independent file of census records. The surname lists have a variety of applications for researchers: identification of individuals to target for study participation; inference of ethnicity in data sources lacking ethnic detail; and characterization of the ethnic composition of a population.