Asian American ethnic identification by surname

Few data sources include ethnicity-level classification for Asian Americans . However, it is often more informative to study the ethnic groups separate ly than to use an aggregate Asian American category, because of differences in immigration history, socioeconomic status, health, and culture. Many ty pes of records that include surnames of persons offer the potential for inf erential ethnic classification. This paper describes the development of sur name lists for six major Asian American ethnic groups: Chinese, Japanese, F ilipino, Korean, Asian Indian, and Vietnamese. The lists were based on Soci al Security Administration records that include country of birth. After the y were compiled, the lists were evaluated using an independent file of cens us records. The surname lists have a variety of applications for researcher s: identification of individuals to target for study participation; inferen ce of ethnicity in data sources lacking ethnic detail; and characterization of the ethnic composition of a population.