List of most popular family names Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Family names can be unique or come in large numbers. In different countries some names are the most popular. Here is the listing (alphabetical by country names):
(on January 1, 2002)
Argentina
Belgium
These are all names of Flemish origin; the most popular French name is Dubois (about 11,000).
Brazil
Most of Brazilian surnames refer to poor colonists and convicts who were the first immigrants into the nation, in 16th century. Since many of them had no family name, they were called "da Costa" when living near the sea coast or "da Silva" (from the jungle) if lived inland. The surname "dos Santos" (from the saints) was given to orphan children. Other common people names include some from Iberian origin, such as Pires, Rodrigues, Lopes, Mendes, Fernandes - notice that they end with -es, not -ez as in Spanish. "New Christians" (converted Jews) adopted names after trees (Pereira, Oliveira), geographic (Ribeiro, Matos), or animals (Coelho, Peixe). The middle and upper classes generally have non-Portuguese names, especially Italian, German and Jewish, from more recent immigrations (this is reflected in the names of several Brazilian presidents).
Bulgaria
China
Main articles: Chinese family name, List of common Chinese surnames
- (based on statistics published in 姓氏人名用字分析統計 Beijing, PRC, 1990)
- Chinese family names come in large numbers. In the 1990 study, the top 200 family names accounted for over 96% of the random sample of 174,900 persons, over 500 other names accounted for the remainder. The sample was taken from 1982 census data.
- In a different study (1987) which combined data from mainland China and Taiwan (sample size of 570,000 persons), the outcome was a bit different. The number one Chinese family name was (李) Li3 at 7.9% of the sample, followed by (王) Wang2 at 7.4% and (张) Zhang1 at 7.1%, the study showed that the top 19 names covered 55.6% and the top 100 names covered 87% of the sample. Chinese family names distributed differently according to regions. The north was dominated by (李) Li3, (王) Wang2, (张) Zhang1, and (刘) Liu2; the south was dominated by (陈) Chen2, (赵) Zhao4, (黄) Huang2, (林) Lin2, and (吴) Wu2. There were over 450 family names in Beijing, but there were less than 300 family names in Guangdong and Fujian. Apparently the distribution of the statistics was significantly affected by the bias from the Taiwanese data.
Czech Republic
- Novák (70 504)
- Svoboda (52 088)
- Novotný (49 962)
- Dvořák (46 099)
- Černý (36 743)
- Procházka (33 274)
- Kučera (31 286)
- Veselý (26 481)
- Horák (25 174)
- Němec (22 795)
- Marek (22 548)
- Pokorný (22 203)
- Pospíšil (22 189)
- Hájek (21 276)
- Jelínek (20 733)
- Král (20 510)
- Růžička (19846)
- Beneš (19 600)
- Fiala (19 121)
- Sedláček (18 484)
Source: Ministry of Interior (as of 2002).
Most popular Danish family names (as of 2004) [1]
Nowadays, the "sen" names have lost their meanings, as women use the names too. It is not common anymore, that Hans Petersens son would be Hansen, but more likely Petersen. Though, the "old" method is still used
Source: Population Register Centre, 17 May 2004. (Percentages based on the population of Finland on 1 January 2004.)
Source: [1]
Main article: Indian family name
Main article: Japanese name
Sources: Institut de la statistique du Québec, Quelques Statistiques sur les Noms de Famille and Les 6 000 premiers noms de famille par ordre alphabétique, Québec
The following list is for England, Wales, and the Isle of Man, and is based on a survey of the National Health Service Central Register[1]:
This is an Article on List of most popular family names. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About List of most popular family names Denmark
The most popular danish family names all end with "sen", meaning "son". That means, that for example "Jensen" is "Son of Jens", "Poulsen" is "Son of Poul". An example would be if Hans Petersens father was Peter Sřrensen, Hans' fathers name was Peter, and his grandfather Sřren. His son would then be Firstname Hansen. This method of naming children was widely used up to the middle of the 19th century. Sometimes it was also common to name girls f.ex. "Jensdatter" or "Poulsdatter", meaning daughter of Jens, or daughter of Poul. These names are seldomly seen in Denmark, but in Iceland, the "datter"-phrase, which in icelandic is "dottir", is stil widely known and used. Egypt
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Müller (9.5%)
Hungary
Nagy (244663)
In Hungary, the family name is usually given first.India
Ireland
Murphy (#1)
Israel
Japan
Korea
Main article: Korean name#Family names
Korean surnames have a variety of ways of being romanized.Latvia
Literally translated - the diminutive forms of birch, hill and oak...The Netherlands
De Jong 55,256
Norway
Names ending in sen are originally patronymic.
Source: Statistics NorwayNuevo León, (Mexico)
Source: GARCÍA, Miriam Para regios...los Martínez Periódico El Norte 18 de marzo de 2003.Poland
Quebec, Canada
The 50 most popular surnames in Quebec
Percentage of total population: 17.82%Romania
Russia
Source 1000 surnames of Krasnoyarsk
Serbia and Montenegro
Spain
García - 1,378,000 people (3.48%)
Sweden
The most common names in Sweden are originally patronymic, which means that the son of e.g. Karl received the surname Karlsson (Karl's son). The daughter received the name Karlsdotter (Karl's daughter). Since the 19th century these names are inherited exactly as in e.g. USA or the United Kingdom and women also receive "son-names". Compare this with the "mac-names" in Scotland. Even though these "son-names" are the most common names in Sweden, a majority of the Swedes have other family names such as Lindberg (linden/lime mountain), Sjöman (Seaman) and Nyman (Newman), but because of the greater diversity of these names each specific name is less common than most "son-names". Noble persons in Sweden often, but not always, have surnames referring to their coat of arms or non-swedish names.United Kingdom
United States
Smith (1.006%)
Vietnam
See also