Name origin – Find origin from a first name and a last name

The four questions, in plain language

• Origin: "Where does this person's family come from?" Returns a country code (ISO). Covers 131 countries.
• Ethnicity / Diaspora: "What is this person's cultural identity?" Returns a named cultural group. Covers 139 groups.
• Country of Residence: "Where does this person live right now?" Returns a country code (ISO). Covers 247 countries and territories.
• US Race / Ethnicity: "Which US Census racial category does this person belong to?" Returns one of six Census categories.

A concrete example: "Carlos García" living in Bogotá

Same name, four different answers, four different insights.

Why Origin doesn't cover every country

Origin classifies the 131 countries that are historically sources of population, not destinations. Countries built through immigration (USA, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, New Zealand and most of Latin America) are not in the Origin taxonomy because there is no single "American origin" or "Australian origin." The people living there come from Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere. Origin tells you where from, not where to.

Common pitfall: Origin returns Spain or Portugal for people living in Latin America

Because Origin reflects ancestral roots and not current location, it will not return Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil or any other Latin American country for people who live there. It will return the country their family historically came from.

• For Carlos García living in Bogotá, Origin returns ES (Spain) — his Spanish ancestral roots, not Colombia.
• For João Silva living in São Paulo, Origin returns PT (Portugal) — his Portuguese ancestral roots, not Brazil.
• For María Rodríguez living in Mexico City, Origin returns ES (Spain) — not Mexico.

The same logic applies to the US, Canada, Australia and other immigration countries. If you need to know the country where the person actually lives, use Country of Residence instead of Origin. If you need cultural segmentation across the Hispanic or Latino diaspora as a group, use Ethnicity / Diaspora.

Why Ethnicity goes beyond countries

Ethnicity captures cultural identities that don't align with national borders:

• Sub-national groups: Scottish, Welsh and English instead of just "British." Flemish and Walloon instead of just "Belgian." Catalan within Spain.
• Transnational groups: Hispanic and HispanoLatino cover the entire Spanish-speaking diaspora across dozens of countries, as a shared cultural identity rather than a specific nationality.
• Religious and cultural groups: Jewish, which is a cultural and religious identity present across many countries.
• Ethnic minorities: Tatar, AfricanAmerican, AsianAmerican, NativeHawaiian.

This is why Ethnicity is more granular than Origin for multicultural countries and diasporas.

What each feature takes as input

The features differ not only in what they return, but also in what context they accept:

• Origin: name only. No country code input. The classification relies entirely on the name itself.
• Ethnicity / Diaspora: name + optional country code. Providing a local context (country of residence, country of work) significantly improves precision, especially in multicultural countries.
• Country of Residence: name only. The goal is to infer the country, so no country input is needed.
• US Race: name + optional country code + optional US ZIP code. Adding a ZIP code provides neighborhood-level context for greater precision.

When to use which feature

• You know where the person lives or works: use Ethnicity / Diaspora with the country code. This is the most precise option for immigration countries like the US, Canada, Australia, France or the UK, where a name alone may not distinguish between multiple possible origins.
• You have a list of names without any context (social media aliases, pseudonyms, historical records with no location data): use Origin. It works from the name alone and doesn't require any additional information. Keep in mind that for Latin American or other immigration contexts, Origin will return the ancestral country, not the current one.
• You need to know where someone currently lives (compliance, localization, routing, or simply the actual country for people in Latin America, the US, Canada, Australia, etc.): use Country of Residence.
• You need US Census-aligned categories (federal reporting, disparate impact analysis): use US Race, ideally with a ZIP code for maximum precision.

As a general rule: when a local context is available, Ethnicity / Diaspora is more precise and more coherent than Origin for countries with diverse populations. Origin is the right choice when no context is available at all.