Premium
Selective neutrality of surname, distribution in an immigrant indian community of Houston, Texas
Author(s) -
Chakraborty Ranajit,
Schwartz Robert J.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
american journal of human biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.559
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1520-6300
pISSN - 1042-0533
DOI - 10.1002/ajhb.1310020102
Subject(s) - immigration , neutrality , distribution (mathematics) , geography , demography , gerontology , sociology , medicine , political science , archaeology , mathematics , law , mathematical analysis
From survey data on surnames in an immigrant community of Indians in Houston, Texas, it is shown that the family size distribution and the distribution of the number of male children per family are independent of the surnames of the parents. This provides a direct test of selective neutrality of surname distributions. A genetic theory of sampling distribution of neutral alleles is employed to estimate the parameter of the surname distribution, and analytical results for the expectation and variance of the frequencies of surnames with a different number of copies in a sample are provided. It is also shown that the surname distribution may indicate presence of mixture in a sample, which can be examined by such theoretical approaches. The transition of surname distributions in two successive generations is shown to follow the pattern predicted by random extinction of surnames.