I have a sheet I photocopied from a book once, listing the top 20 surnames in telephone books in six different cities. (I think the list is from the 1970's, but I'm not sure.) Talk about reinforcing stereotypes.
- Boston's list included Sullivan, Murphy, McCarthy, O'Brien, Kelly, MacDonald, and O'Connor.
- New York's included Cohen, Schwartz, Levine, Friedman, Goldstein, Levy, and Goldberg.
- Milwaukee's included Schmidt, Mueller, Schultz, Krueger, Meyer, Schneider, Schroeder, and Fischer.
- San Francisco's included Lee and Wong.
But the winner was definitely Minneapolis. The top ten names in order were Johnson, Anderson, Nelson, Peterson, Olson, Larson, Carlson, Smith, Miller, and Thompson.