400 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The nineteen English furnish 168 in "Who's Who." The 8 Scotch 57, 

 the 15 Irish 37, the 8 German or Jewish furnish only 11. Thus it ap- 

 pears that, while the Irish and Jewish element in New York may con- 

 trol politics and the wholesale and retail trade, they have not often 

 risen to high positions. 



In Chicago the German and particularly the Scandinavian elements 

 naturally show themselves in the surnames. Smith is even outdone by 

 Johnson (here probably to a large extent Scandinavian). Anderson 

 beats Miller and Peterson beats Jones, Olson is commoner than Davis 

 and appears again as Olsen. Irish names are fairly common, Jewish 

 names are not. The names not of English origin in the above list 

 furnish 12 distinguished Chicagoans against 80 with characteristically 

 English. names. Other names of Chicago people occurring in "Who's 

 Who in America" in blocks of four or more are Webster, Black, Car- 

 penter, Cole, Evans, McCormick, Mathews and Stone. Not a single 

 foreign name occurs frequently. Crediting each common name in 

 Chicago to the European country in which it is most common and 

 leaving out Johnson and Anderson as doubtful cases, the distribution 

 and number in " Who's Who " is as follows : 18 English names furnish 

 59 distinguished individuals; 7 Scotch 24; 11 Irish 11. The 12 Ger- 

 mans, Jewish, Scandinavian or other common names furnish none ! 



In Philadelphia (of the 50 commonest names) 32 characteristically 

 English names total 86 distinguished persons, 18 non-English total 

 only 7. Crediting each common name to the " Old Country " in which 

 it is most common, we find the distribution is England and Wales 28 

 names with 45 in "Who's Who in America." Scotland 11 names with 

 18; Ireland 9 with 4, and 2 other countries with 1. 



For Boston the facts are a little startling. It seems almost un- 

 believable that the Irish making up more than half the population of 

 the city, many of whom represent the second and third generation (for 

 the Irish began to come to Boston in large numbers as early as 1830), 

 can furnish only about two dozen persons entitled to national recogni- 

 tion. 



According to "Who's Who in America" there were no persons in 

 Boston entitled to inclusion, at the beginning of the year 1912 

 bearing the most common names of McCarthy, Davis, McDonald, Kelly, 

 Doherty, Kelley, Donovan, Collins, Eyan, Miller, McLaughlin, Walsh, 

 Mahoney, Young, Lynch, Martin, Foley, Crowley, Barry, Burke and 

 Driscoll. Four of these names are Anglo-Saxon in origin, 3 are com- 

 mon to both the Scotch and Irish and 14 are essentially Celtic. Among 

 the 50 commonest names in Boston found in "Who's Who," those of 

 Anglo-Saxon origin total 64 distinguished representives, those of Celtic 

 only 5. There should be about the same number of Anglo-Saxon and 

 of Celtic since 20 of these common Boston names are Celtic to 26 



