I'm from Germany and after noticing that many American personalities have German backgrounds I recently looked up that apparently German is the biggest ethnic group in America and that like 12% of all Americans have German ancestry so basically more than 1 out of every 10 people.

I knew that there are some people in America with German ancestry but I never thought it's that many. I always thought that there were other way more common ethnic groups such as UK, Irish or something Asian/African and thought Germans are a minority. I never thought that Germans are so prevalent in America though and that they're actually the biggest ethnic group. I wonder if that is a topic in American conversation cause I assume many Americans are curious about their ancestry and many might even have had contact to family members that are directly from Germany. And I wonder if they identify as American or German or both? (For example I always hear "African-American" being used but I'm not sure that I heard "European-American" that often)