SUCCESSFUL AMERICANS 397 



THE RACIAL ORIGIN OF SUCCESSFUL AMERICANS 



By Dr. FREDERICK ADAMS WOODS 



MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 



THE New York World Almanac and Encyclopedia for 1914 gives 

 a table showing the commonest surnames at the present time in 

 England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, arranged in the order of 

 their frequency, according to a compilation made by the London Pall 

 Mall Gazette, also the fifty commonest names in the cities of New York, 

 Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston specially compiled for the World 

 Almanac. A person's last name is not always an indication of race or 

 nationality, but the following names which are here arranged in their 

 order of frequency as they occur in England and Wales certainly have 

 a thoroughly English sound. Smith, Jones, Williams, Taylor, Davies, 

 Brown, Thomas, Evans, Roberts, Johnson, Wilson, Robinson, Wright, 

 Wood, Thompson, Hall, Green, Walker, Hughes, Edwards, Lewis, 

 White, Turner, Jackson, Hill, Harris, Clark, Cooper, Harrison, Ward, 

 Martin, Davis, Baker, Morris, James, King, Morgan, Allen, Moore, 

 Parker, Clark, Cook, Price, Phillips, Shaw, Bennett, Lee, Watson, 

 Griffiths, Carter. 



In contrast to this list, the English-sounding names sink to perhaps 

 less then ten per cent, in Ireland. Probably a large proportion of these 

 Anglo-Saxon names belong to the Protestant Irish of Ulster county. 

 The order of frequency for Ireland as a whole is Murphy, Kelly, Sulli- 

 van, Walsh, Smith, O'Brien, Bryne, Byrne, Connor, O'Neill, Reilly, 

 Doyle, McCarthy, Gallagher, Doherty, Kennedy, Lynch, Murray, 

 Quinn, Moore, McLaughlin, Carroll, Connolly, Daly, Connell, Wilson, 

 Dunne, Brennan, Burke, Collins, Campbell, Clarke, Johnson, Hughes, 

 Farrell, Fitzgerald, Brown, Martin, Maguire, Nolan, Flynn, Thompson, 

 Callaghan, O'Donnell, Duffy, Mahony, Boyle, Healy, Shea, White. It 

 seems that there are only about nine names of English origin out of 

 these fifty and with the exception of Smith none are high in the list. 



In New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston, the Irish, 

 German, Scandinavian and Jewish elements are recognizable in 

 Murphy, Kelly, Cohen, Levy, Cohn, etc. Immigration has been going 

 on for a number of years, and we may ask to what extent these more 

 recently arrived races have risen to positions of national importance or 

 distinguished themselves in professional life. The compilation "Who's 

 Who in America" endeavors to include, if not the best, at least "the 

 best-known men and women of the United States." The standards of 

 admission divide the eligibles into two classes (1) "those who are 



