Data for Discussion | May 2026
Most Common Surnames in Silicon Valley
By Rachel Massaro
A surname can offer a small glimpse into the history of a region — revealing patterns of immigration, cultural change, and population growth over time. To better understand how Silicon Valley’s electorate is evolving, the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies compared voter surname frequency data from 2022 and 2025 across Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.
The findings closely mirror broader demographic shifts documented in the 2026 Silicon Valley Index. Census data show that Asian residents now comprise 42 percent of the region’s population — up from 39 percent in 2022 and just 21 percent in 1990 — while Silicon Valley’s foreign-born population remains among the highest in the nation at roughly 40 percent. The Index also found that Chinese and Asian Indian residents represent the two largest Asian ancestry groups in the region, together accounting for more than half of Silicon Valley’s Asian population. Those broader demographic patterns are increasingly visible within the region’s voter rolls as well.
Between 2022 and 2025, Silicon Valley’s voter rolls became both larger and more concentrated around a relatively small number of surnames, while continuing to diversify — including notable growth among Asian surnames. Across Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, the number of registered voters grew by more than 42,000 between 2022 and 2025, reaching nearly 982,000 voters and encompassing nearly 10,800 unique surnames.
At the same time, 10 percent of all voters shared the region’s 10 most common surnames alone, up from 9 percent in 2022. Nguyen remained Silicon Valley’s most common surname by a wide margin, accounting for nearly 3 percent of all voters in both years. Although its overall share of the electorate remained relatively stable, the number of registered voters with the surname Nguyen increased by 3,000 individuals over the four-year period (from 25,300 to 28,300).
While surnames do not necessarily reflect individual identity or ancestry, broader surname frequency patterns can still offer insight into demographic and immigration trends, despite the limitations of surname-based analysis. Several Asian surnames rose notably in both rank and raw numbers between 2022 and 2025, reflecting continued growth and civic integration among Silicon Valley residents of Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian, and Korean ancestry. Le overtook Garcia to become the region’s fifth most common surname, while Li and Liu climbed from the 20th and 21st most common surnames to 16th and 17th, respectively.
Other surnames commonly associated with Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, and Indian communities — including Lin, Huynh, Wu, Zhang, Yang, Patel, Shah, Gupta, Kumar, and Sharma — also increased substantially over the period.
Many predominantly Hispanic surnames, including Garcia, Martinez, Rodriguez, Lopez, Hernandez, Ramirez, Perez, Rivera, Torres, and Gomez, likewise grew numerically, though several expanded more slowly than the region’s fastest-rising Asian surnames, resulting in modest declines in relative rank within the voter file. Garcia, for example, increased from 6,300 to 6,500 voters despite slipping from the fifth to sixth most common surname, while Ramirez rose from 3,100 to 3,300 voters even as its rank declined slightly.
Meanwhile, several traditionally European-origin surnames, including Smith, Johnson, Brown, Miller, Anderson, and Walker, generally grew more slowly than the overall electorate, resulting in lower relative rank within the voter file. Smith, for example, dropped from the 11th most common surname in 2022 to 15th in 2025 despite only modest numerical decline. Taken together, the findings mirror broader demographic trends documented in the Silicon Valley Index, including continued growth among Silicon Valley’s Asian communities, reinforcing Silicon Valley’s position as one of the country’s most demographically distinct major metropolitan regions.
To view detailed Silicon Valley demographic data, visit SiliconValleyIndicators.org/data/people/talent-flows-diversity.
Data Source: L2 Voter & Demographic Dataset
Notes: Analysis is based on registered voter surname frequency data for Santa Clara and San Mateo counties combined and therefore reflects the adult registered voter population rather than the region’s full population. Some surnames overlap across multiple East Asian cultures due to shared linguistic and historical roots. For example, surnames such as Lee, Li, and Ly are associated with Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese naming traditions, respectively, while transliterations may vary across languages and immigration histories. Surname origins referenced in this analysis are approximate and reflect common linguistic and cultural associations rather than individual identity. They do not necessarily reflect an individual’s ancestry, ethnicity, or family history. Asian surname classifications were informed by Diane S. Lauderdale & Bert Kestenbaum, “Asian-American Ethnic Identification by Surname” (Population Research and Policy Review, 19:283–300, 2000). Predominantly Hispanic surnames were identified using the U.S. Census Bureau’s Frequently Occurring First Names and Last Names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026), which classifies surnames based on self-reported race and Hispanic origin responses in Census data. Filipino surnames were not separately classified because many overlap substantially with commonly occurring Hispanic surnames.
About the Author
Rachel Massaro is vice president of Joint Venture and director of research at the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies. Their work aims to bridge the gap between academia, council chambers, the boardroom, and the dinner table.
