Society Ethnic breakdown of White Americans

[Tomenable]

Based on the "First Ancestry" question from the 2000 census. In many cases this is not the only ancestry that people reported (often they reported two or more ancestries), but this is the first (and therefore main) ancestry that they reported. I couldn't find data about "First Ancestry" from the 2010 and 2020 censuses, so I used the 2000 census. I added the response "American" to British and Irish category, because the vast majority of those reporting "American" have colonial British and Irish roots. I adjusted the percentages to the current percent of Whites among the total U.S. population - 61%.

Type of ancestry - % of all White Americans / % of all Americans

British and Irish ancestry - 44.572% / 27.190%
Germanic Central European - 21.605% / 13.178%
Southern European ancestry - 10.974% / 6.694%
Western European ancestry - 6.685% / 4.078%
Eastern European ancestry* - 8.562% / 5.223%
Scandinavian / North Euro - 5.137% / 3.134%
Greek & Balkan ancestry** - 1.333% / 0.813%
Canada/Australia/NZ ancestry - 0.383% / 0.233%
Jewish ("religious response") - 0.749% / 0.457%

Total - 100% / 61%

*Includes 7.225% / 4.407% Slavic Eastern European
**Includes 0.609% / 0.372% Slavic Balkan ancestry

Responses counted as British and Irish ancestry:

British
British Isles
Cornish
English
Irish
Manx
Northern Irelander
Scotch-Irish
Scottish
Welsh
Celtic
Anglo
American

Responses counted as Germanic Central European:

Austrian
Tirol
Frisian
German
Bavarian
Hessian
Prussian
Saxon
East German
West German
Liechtensteiner
Luxemburger
Swiss
Switzer
German Russian
Volga German
Pennsylvania German

Responses counted as Southern European ancestry:

Basque
Basque Spanish
Italian
Rome
Sicilian
San Marino
Maltese
Portuguese
Azorean
Southern European
Spaniard
Castillian
Catalonian
Balearic Islander
Canarian
Spanish
Spanish American

Responses counted as Western European ancestry:

Alsatian
Basque French
Belgian
Flemish
Walloon
Corsican
Dutch
French
Breton
Monegasque
Suisse
Western European
French Canadian
Acadian
Cajun

Responses counted as Eastern European ancestry:

Pomeranian
Belorussian
Carpatho Rusyn
Carpathian
Rusyn
Ruthenian
Cossak
Czech
Bohemian
Moravian
Czechoslovakian
Estonian
Hungarian
Magyar
Latvian
Lithuanian
Polish
Romanian
Dobrujan
Moldavian
Russian
Slovak
Sorbian/Wend
Soviet Union
Crimean
Ukrainian
Windish
Slavonian
Central European
Eastern European
Silesian
Galician

Responses counted as Scandinavian / North Euro:

Danish
Finnish
Icelander
Lapp
Norwegian
Swedish
Scandinavian
Northern European

Responses counted as Greek & Balkan ancestry:

Cypriot
Cypriot Greek
Greek
Albanian
Bulgarian
Croatian
Macedonian
Montenegran
Serbian
Slovene
Yugoslavian
Herzogovinian
Slavic

Responses counted as Canada/Australia/NZ ancestry:

Australian
New Zealander
Canadian
Newfoundlander
Nova Scotian

And here is my source:

First, Second, and Total Responses to the Ancestry Question by Detailed Ancestry Code: 2000

Source: Census 2000, special tabulation

www.census.gov

 

[Tomenable]

I actually forgot that Hispanic Whites can declare ancestry other than Spanish (for example Mexican ancestry). Hispanic Whites are around 3.5% of the U.S. population. Non-Hispanic Whites are 57.5%. Now I adjusted % of Non-Hispanic Whites to 57.5%:

Type of ancestry - percent of total U.S. population

British and Irish ancestry - 26.172%
Germanic Central European - 12.685%
South European except Iberian - 5.225%
Western European ancestry - 3.926%
Eastern European ancestry* - 5.204%
Scandinavian / North Euro - 2.841%
Greek & Balkan ancestry** - 0.782%
Canada/Australia/NZ ancestry - 0.225%
Jewish ("religious response") - 0.440%

Total - 57.5%

South European Iberian ancestry - 3.5% (including just over 1% declaring Portuguese/Spanish ancestry)

Total - 61.0%

*Includes 4.348% Slavic Eastern European
**Includes 0.358% Slavic Balkan ancestry

 

[Jovialis]

In my experience, a lot of these groups are mixed.

Most of the White Americans I knew growing up were typically German, Italian and/or Irish in my area; a mix of those three particularly.

Being just Italian was considered kind of unique to most people I encountered.

 

[qh777]

When people see my last name. They ask, "Are you French?" And I have to say partly but mostly British Isles with German and Low Countries ancestry too.

 

[Alcuin]

When people see my last name. They ask, "Are you French?" And I have to say partly but mostly British Isles with German and Low Countries ancestry too.

Much like Mr Disney, whose Norman surname obfuscated seven centuries of English and Irish ancestry

 

[MOESAN]

Much like Mr Disney, whose Norman surname obfuscated seven centuries of English and Irish ancestry

Disney, maybe from Isigny town (D'Isigny) in Normandy, begun Norman-Irish surname.
in the States it's hard to weight origins based only on surnames without genealogy, because a lot of German, Dutch and Scandinavian names, because of their proximity with germanic English, have been disguised in English ones.