What's In A Surname?

America is a nation of Smiths, Johnsons, and Sullivans - but also of Garcias and Nguyens. Here's a new view of the United States based on the distribution of common last names. The map shows centuries of history and echoes some of America's great immigration sagas.

To compile this data, geographers at University College London used phone directories to find the predominant surnames in each state. Software then identified the probable provenances of the 181 names that emerged.