# Most frequent surnames



## Frank78

Hello all,

I´d like to know what the most frequent surnames in your country are.
Please also give a rough translation. In Germany most surnames derived from occupations.

1. Schmidt/Schmitt/Schmid/Schmit/etc. (blacksmith)
2. Meyer/Mayer/Meier/Maier/etc. (a tenant or a civil servant)
3. Müller (miller)
4. Schneider (tailor)
5. Fischer (fisherman)
6. Weber (weaver)
7. Wagner (wainwright)


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## ewie

Hello Frank.  Well, you've already named 4 very common UK surnames: _Smith, Miller, Taylor, Fisher.  Weaver_ and _Wainwright_ are slightly less so.  Other very common occupational surnames include: _Cooper _('barrel-maker'), _Fletcher _('arrow-maker') ...
Nickname surnames also constitute some of our commonest surnames: _Brown, Green, White_, etc.


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## mirx

México, and I assume all other Spanish-speaking countries, have surnames deriving from personal names, such as:
Martin*ez* = Son of Martin.
Fernand*ez* = Son of Ferdinand
Per*ez* = Son of Peter.

These would be the commonest surnames.

Family names derived from occupations are also quite popular.

Herrera : Blacksmith
Pescador: Fisherman.
Molina : Miller
Zapatero: Shoemaker

My mind is tired so I presume a lot of occupation-related names are escaping me.


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## Macunaíma

In Brazil the most common surname is _Silva_, of Galician origin, which comes from Latin and means _bush_ or _heath_. Our current President is a _da Silva_. Each region in Brazil has its most common surnames. Where I come from, one of the most common ones is _Negreiros_, which, shocking as it may seem, means _slave traders_.


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## JamesM

Here's an interesting Wikipedia article on the topic, with listings by country:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_common_surnames

According to the chart in this article (based on 2000 Census data), the top ten surnames in the U.S. are:

Smith - a smith
Johnson - John's son
Williams - William's (family?)
Brown 
Jones
Miller - someone who mills
Davis
Garcia
Rodriguez - son of Rodrigo ?
Wilson - son of Will

I think this is the first time I've seen hispanic names in the top ten.


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## Frank06

Hi,

According to this website, the most frequent surnames in *Flanders, Belgium* are:
Peeters (son of Peter)
Janssens (son of Jan)
Maes (son of Maas (Thomas))
Jacobs (son of Jacob)
Mertens (son of Maarten)
Willems (son of Wilhelm)
Claes (son of Nicolaas/Niklaas)
Goossens (patronym)
Wouters (son of Wouter)
De Smet (smith)

And in *the Netherlands*:
De Jong (compare with junior)
Jansen (see above)
De Vries (the Frisian)
Van den Berg (from a place which is a bit higher)
Bakker (baker)
Van Dijk (dike)
Janssen (see above)
Visser (fisher)
Smit (smith)
De Boer (farmer)

In *Wallonia, Belgium* (here):
Dubois (from the forrest)
Lambert (son of Lambrecht)
Martin (son of Maarten)
Dupont (from the bridge)
Dumont (from the mountain)
Simon (of Simon)
Leclercq (the clark)
Laurent (patronym)
Lejeune (see De Jong, junior)
Renard


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## ewie

Here are the most common surnames in the UK:


 SMITH
 JONES
 WILLIAMS
 BROWN
 TAYLOR
 DAVIES
 WILSON
 EVANS
 THOMAS
 JOHNSON
Patronymic: _Jones_ (John), _Williams, Davies _(David), _Wilson _(Will[iam]), _Evans _(Evan/Ifan), _Thomas, Johnson_.
Occupational: _Smith, Taylor_.
Nickname: _Brown_.

Four of the patronymics (_Jones, Williams, Davies, Evans_) are thought of as specifically *Welsh* in origin ... strange when you consider the absolutely minimal impact the Welsh language had on English _in general._


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## Revontuli

Thanks for the thread, Frank. It's really interesting
I confirm the list of Wikipedia, the most common ones in Turkey are:


Yılmaz (dauntless)
Kaya (rock)
Demir (iron)
Şahin (falcon)
Çelik (steel)
[name]oğlu (son of [name])
Kara(black)


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## ewie

Wow, Turkish surnames are _exciting_!


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## federicoft

According to this site, these are the 20 most common surnames in Italy.


 Rossi
Russo
Ferrari
Esposito
Bianchi
Romano
Colombo
Ricci
Marino
Greco
Bruno
Gallo
Conti
De Luca
Costa
Giordano
Mancini
Rizzo
Lombardi
Moretti

The first two mean "redhead", with Russo being specifically Southern Italian. Ferrari means "smith". The other surnames refer to geographical locations (Romani - from Rome; Greco - Greek; Lombardi - Lombard), phisical features (Ricci and Rizzo - curly hair; Mancini - left-handed; Bruno - dark-haired) or derive from Latin names (Marino, Colombo, De Luca).


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## Pedro y La Torre

In Ireland there's only one winner: Murphy, which comes from the Irish meaning sea-warrior 

Others such as Mc, O' (meaning son of) etc. deriving from the Irish and Norman names such as Fitzsimons, Fitzgerald (which comes from the French _fils de)_ are also very widespread.

Here's one list of the top 20 most popular surnames in Ireland.

It should be noted that in Ireland everyone has both Irish _and_ English versions of their name, so those choosing to use the Irish version of Murphy, Ó Murchú, probably wouldn't even be included in the English list.


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## Macunaíma

According to the Wikipedia article linked by JamesM, the second most common surname in Rio de Janeiro is _Santos_ (saints), which was a surname commonly given to baptized slaves (although there are a few _dos Santos_ families in Portugal too, especially in the Azores islands). Other surnames traditionally given to such slaves were _de Jesus_ and _Nascimento_ (birth). 

Other translatable names on the list are: Oliveira (olive tree), Pereira (pear tree), Costa (coast), Carvalho (oak), Almeida (a toponym of arabic origin, probably named the family of some Portuguese warrior who fought in the Reconquest War), Lima (lime), Rocha (rock), Pinto (chick [bird]), Cunha (wedge).


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## Revontuli

ewie said:


> Wow, Turkish surnames are _exciting_!


 
But they look a bit scary compared to other translations like olive tree, baker, shoemaker etc...


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## RaLo18

The most common names in Israel are by far Cohen כהן (priest) and Levi לוי (one of Jacob's children and an Israelite tribe called after him, or levite, a descendant of this tribe).

According to Wikipedia, the top five surnames are:

1) כהן Cohen  (2.52% of the population)
2) לוי Levi (1.48%)
3) מזרחי Mizrachi (0.47%) = eastern.
4) פרץ Peretz (0.42%) - a biblical name, Pharez.
5) ביטון Biton (0.40%) - from _vita_ = life


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## HUMBERT0

In Mexico: Anything ending in -ez "son of" is very popular...  

Hernández. Son of Hernando variation of Fernando, Germanic Fredenand or Fridnand
García . Of Pre-Roman origin, either Iberian or Basque 
Martínez. Son of Martin, also from Latin, derived from Martis
López. Son of Lope, from Latin Lupus, meaning wolf
González. Son of Gonzalo, from the Latinised form Gundisalvus, of Germanic origin 
Rodríguez. Son of Rodrigo, from Germanic Roderic 
Pérez. Son of Pedro, from Latin Petrus 
Sánchez. Son of Sancho, from Latin Sanct 
Ramírez. Son of Ramiro, from Germanic Radamir or Radmir


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## rusita preciosa

*Russian*
Below are the top-20 names. The endings *-ov*, *-ev*, *-iov* mean something like "belonging to..."; "from the people of..." (e.g. Ivanov: literally, "from the people of Ivan" or more generally, "son of Ivan"). So, you can add this to any word and get a genuine-sounding Russian surname 

1. Смирнов (Smirnov) - son of a person nicknamed “quiet one”
2. Иванов (Ivanov) – son of Ivan
3. Кузнецов (Kuznetsov) – son of a blacksmith
4. Попов (Popov) – son of a priest (yes, Orthodox priests are allowed – even encouraged – to have large families and boy they did, hence Popov is 4th most common family name! )
5. Соколов (Sokolov) – son of a person nicknamed “falcon”
6. Лебедев (Lebedev) son of a person nicknamed “swan"
7. Козлов (Kozlov) ) son of a person nicknamed “goat"
8. Новиков (Novikov) son of a person nicknamed “the new one”
9. Морозов (Morozov) son of a person nicknamed “frost"
10. Петров (Petrov) son of Peter
11. Волков (Volkov) son of a person nicknamed “wolf"
12. Соловьёв (Soloviev) son of a person nicknamed “nightingale”
13. Васильев (Vassiliev) – son of Vassili
14. Зайцев (Zaitsev) son of a person nicknamed “hare”
15. Павлов (Pavlov) – son of Pavel (Paul)
16. Семёнов (Semionov) – son of Semion
17. Голубев (Golubev) son of a person nicknamed “pigeon”
18. Виноградов (Vinogradov) son of a person nicknamed “grape”; possibly winemaker
19. Богданов (Bogdanov) son of Bogdan (Bogdan means Given by God)
20. Воробьёв (Vorobiev) son of a person nicknamed “sparrow”


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## Frank78

rusita preciosa said:


> Orthodox priests are allowed – even encouraged – to have large families and boy they did, hence Popov is 4th most common family name!



Protestant bishops and priests are also allowed to marry and have children while their catholic counterparts must not marry.


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## Favara

The most common in Catalan:
1. Vila ("Village", seems like it originally meant "house")
2. Vidal ("Lively" , "healthy", "strong")
3. Serra ("Mountain range")
4. Martí ("Martin", a name)
5. Ferrer ("Blacksmith")
6. Soler (From _solar_, ~"lands")
7. Puig ("Mountain", "peak")
8. Roca ("Rock")
9. Pujol ("Small mountain")
10. Font ("Fountain")
11. Duran (?)
12. Medina (From arabic _medina_, "city")
13. Costa ("Coast")
14. Rovira (From Latin _robereda_, meaning "oak forest")
15. Sala ("Hall")
16. Pons (From _ponts_, "bridges")
17. Bosch (Old writing of _bosc_, "forest")
18. Roig ("Red")
19. Mora ("Blackberry")
20. Riera ("Creek")


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## ewie

I kept reading all these surnames in other languages and thinking, "Wow, British surnames are so _dull_ in comparison."  Then I realized that we do actually _have_ a lot of those surnames ... it's just that they're not especially common.  It's only our commonest surnames that are so dull (which perhaps says something about _us_):

Новиков ~ _New
_Морозов ~ _Frost_
Соловьёв ~ _Nightingale
_Голубев ~ _Pi(d)geon

_Vidal ~ _Strong
_Sala ~ _Hall
_Pons ~ _Bridges
_Bosch ~ _For(r)est_

etc.


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## Revontuli

And yes, "Güçlü(Strong)" is another common surname in Turkish too.


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## swift

mirx said:


> Per*ez* = Son of Peter.



Me llama mucho la atención ese significado. Quizá en la heráldica española se considere así, pero hasta donde yo tengo entendido Pérez es un nombre propio de origen hebreo. 

En Costa Rica: Hernández, Sánchez. Son los que tengo en mente. Pero consultaré la guía telefónica (es una excelente fuente ).


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## Frank78

The first German name not refering to an occupation is on place 15: "Klein" (the small). I´m wondering what would happen if the German Mr. Small meets the Turkish Mr. Rock. 

The first non-Germanic name is on place 157 "Nowak" (Polish origin), place 587: "Yilmaz" (due to many Turkish immigrants), place 815 "Nguyen" (the former GDR had a lot of Vietnamese guest workers)


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## Revontuli

Frank78 said:


> The first German name not refering to an occupation is on place 15: "Klein" (the small). I´m wondering what would happen if the German Mr. Small meets the Turkish Mr. Rock.
> 
> The first non-Germanic name is on place 157 "Nowak" (Polish origin), place 587: "Yilmaz" (due to many Turkish immigrants), place 815 "Nguyen" (the former GDR had a lot of Vietnamese guest workers)


 
Yılmaz? Well, of course, not that hard to imagine.

OK, I accept the common Turkish surnames sound a bit...harsh But Mr Klein and Mr Rock would get on well.


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## mirx

swift said:


> Me llama mucho la atención ese significado. Quizá en la heráldica española se considere así, pero hasta donde yo tengo entendido Pérez es un nombre propio de origen hebreo.
> 
> En Costa Rica: Hernández, Sánchez. Son los que tengo en mente. Pero consultaré la guía telefónica (es una excelente fuente ).


 
Swift, no sé de dónde con exactitud venga el nombre, lo que sí que al español llegó del latín. Y por supuesto que no me refería a _Peter_ como nombre propio inglés, sino como la traducción de Hijo de Pedro. Tomando en cuanta que Pedro al español llegó de otro lado.

Saludos.


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## Favara

Maybe it has something to do with the Catalan version of the name, _Pere_. Or with the related surname, _Peris_ (_-is_ in Catalan surnames is like -_ez_ in Spanish, so there's _Peris, Gomis, Ferrandis..._).


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## Namakemono

swift said:


> Me llama mucho la atención ese significado. Quizá en la heráldica española se considere así, pero hasta donde yo tengo entendido Pérez es un nombre propio de origen hebreo.


Pérez, según entiendo, es el hijo de Pedro, que significa piedra. Es el equivalente de Pierre, Peter y Piero. Nuestros apellidos acabados en -ez, si no me equivoco, derivan del genitivo latino.


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## Chaska Ñawi

And now, a note from your friendly neighbourhood moderators:

This thread came perilously near to being closed, because it asked for - and received - lists. Technically it should have been removed immediately, since the cultural guidelines are quite explicit about not responding with these.

However, the cultural moderators have lives apart from WordReference (who knew? ) and missed this thread for a day or so.... and some of the posts have been quite informative and interesting.

We are therefore making an exception for _this thread only_. Current posts will be allowed to remain. Subsequent posts that consist of lists only, with insufficient explanation or context, will be deleted. 

The thread will remain open as long as everyone is content to abide by these rules. 

cheers


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## Hakro

The Finnish surnames refer mostly to the place where the family lived, and there's very often the ending -nen or -lainen. Another very common ending is -la. 

Until this year Virtanen has been the most common name, and it can be interpreted like this: Virta = river; Virtanen = someone who lives on a river. Similarly, the third common name is Nieminen: Niemi = cape; Nieminen = someone who lives on a cape.

Still some 150 years ago the surname was the same as the name of the farm. When a person or a family moved to another place, they often took a new surname.

There are only a few Finnish surnames referring to a profession. Seppä (smith) with a couple of variations is the most common.

Under the threat of closing this thread I won't put a list of the most common Finnish surnames, but it might be interesting to know that just a few months ago the surname Korhonen overtook the so far leader Virtanen, just as suddenly as Räikkönen overtook Fisichella in Spa today. (Maybe Korhonen used the KERS?)

Korhonen probably means someone who lives on a high place (korkea = high) but this is only my own guess.


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## Revontuli

Hakro said:


> The Finnish surnames refer mostly to the place where the family lived, and there's very often the ending -nen or -lainen. Another very common ending is -la.
> 
> Until this year Virtanen has been the most common name, and it can be interpreted like this: Virta = river; Virtanen = someone who lives on a river. Similarly, the third common name is Nieminen: Niemi = cape; Nieminen = someone who lives on a cape.
> 
> Still some 150 years ago the surname was the same as the name of the farm. When a person or a family moved to another place, they often took a new surname.
> 
> There are only a few Finnish surnames referring to a profession. Seppä (smith) with a couple of variations is the most common.
> 
> Under the threat of closing this thread I won't put a list of the most common Finnish surnames, but it might be interesting to know that just a few months ago the surname Korhonen overtook the so far leader Virtanen, just as suddenly as Räikkönen overtook Fisichella in Spa today. (Maybe Korhonen used the KERS?)
> 
> Korhonen probably means someone who lives on a high place (korkea = high) but this is only my own guess.


 
Having a special interest in anything Finnish, thank you for sharing this, Hakro.

I forgot to add, another common surname here is the one that ends with "-türk(Turk)": Öztürk, Şentürk etc. And like in Finnish, few surnames are related to a profession in Turkish.

It surprises me, although people were called as "son of..." or "X from (city/village name etc)" before having surnames in Turkey, they're not in the list of most common ones.


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## Valeria Mesalina

Macunaíma said:


> Other translatable names on the list are: Oliveira (olive tree), Pereira (pear tree), Costa (coast), Carvalho (oak).



Some of those names match the Galician Pereira, Oliveira, Costa, Carballo.

The most common names in Galicia are the ones thet end in -ez, already mentioned as _son of._ Son of Pero (Pérez), son of Nuño (Núñez).

Name places are also common, with the particularity that many of them have two versions.

Costa (coast) and Dacosta (from the coast)
Vila (city) and Davila
Campo (field) and Docampo
Ponte (bridge) and Daponte
Castro (fortified village on top of a hill) and Docastro.

There is, too, a terrible name quite common here: Expósito (abandoned at birth). I can only imagine that, due to the massive male emigration during past centuries, the number of illegitimate chidren spread like fire.

And there is one that is quite common in the Rías Altas: Dios.


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## Ivonne do Tango

I found very interesting this Discussion and I saw it was in September the last post. 

De todas maneras (sigo en español que me fluye) quisiera agregar que en Argentina no hay un estilo de apellido definido debido a la colonización y a las inmigraciones que hemos recibido de Europa.

Por tal motivo, la guía telefónica de Buenos Aires (la cual ha recibido gran número de inmigrantes españoles) tiene numerosas páginas para González, Pérez, Gutiérrez. Los apellidos españoles abundan, de este tipo y de los vascos como Olartechea-Urtizberea-Berea-Dolagaratz. Los hay catalanes como Llavallol-Serrot-Prat-etc. También los hay frances como Auge-Betancourt-Dubois, etc. y de muchas otras nacionalidades.

Por otro lado, en Bs. As. compiten apellidos españoles con los italianos del sur que ha sido otra fuerte inmigración, aunque éstos se han asentado más en el litoral de Argentina. Corrientes tiene una fuerte influencia Guaraní, Santa Fe ha recibido inmigración italiana y también austríaca, polaca y alemana (judíos) por lo que abundan los apellidos de orígen alemán y polaco. Misiones por ejemplo (limite con Brasil) son todos apellidos italianos y alemanes.

Los apellidos aborígenes: en quechua-tupí guaraní-mocobí-mapuches-tehuelches-onas, etc., etc... No conozco ninguna persona que tenga un apellido originario de nuestra tierra


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## Chaska Ñawi

Ivonne do Tango said:


> Los apellidos aborígenes: en quechua-tupí guaraní-mocobí-mapuches-tehuelches-onas, etc., etc... No conozco ninguna persona que tenga un apellido originario de nuestra tierra



En Canada los sacerdotes y oficiales cambiaron los apelidos de la mayoría de los originarios, sino los Inuit (Esquimales).  No sé porqué lo mismo no se ocurrieron en occidente de Bolivia, pero allá quedan mucha gente con el apelido Mamani, Poma (= puma), Pachacopa, Apaza, y otros apelidos aymaras y quechuas.


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## stevea

Over in Wales - Jones, Evans, Williams and Hughes. Have a look at the teams for the Rugby Internationals to get a flavour.


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## Ivonne do Tango

Hi all,

The suggestion of Stevea is great to watch the most frequent surnames in a country. In our Rugby selection "Los Pumas", you will find Italian, Spanish, Catalan and from _País Vasco_ surnames (also in Hockey "Las Leonas"). In football is very commom the italian surnames: Batistuta-Maradona-Mascherano-Caniggia-Paletta-Battaglia-Abbondanzieri-ect., etc.



Chaska Ñawi said:


> En Canada los sacerdotes y oficiales cambiaron los apelidos de la mayoría de los originarios, sino los Inuit (Esquimales). No sé porqué lo mismo no se ocurrieron en occidente de Bolivia, pero allá quedan mucha gente con el apelido Mamani, Poma (= puma), Pachacopa, Apaza, y otros apelidos aymaras y quechuas.


 
En Argentina, aunque deben haberlos, son contados con los dedos de la mano. En otros países de latinoamérica como Bolivia o Perú es más habitual conocer apellidos originarios, pero en su gran mayoría son españoles.

Es muy común conocer personas con rasgos indígenas llamados Acuña, León, Paniagua, Navarro, etc.


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## javier8907

I cannot add much more to what other people have said about Spanish surnames: the most common of them are derived from patronyms -like in Russian, but not so overwhelmingly, yet unlike Russian, (nearly) always -actually I can't think of a single counter-example- from the father's christian name.

These are the most common 20 surnames in Spain, as of 2008.

García (from the christian name García, inexisting now but quite popular during the Middle Ages)
González (son of Gonzalo, of Germanic origin)
Rodríguez (son of Rodrigo, ")
Fernández (son of Fernando, ")
López (son of Lope, somehow deriving from Latin "lupus", wolf)
Martínez (son of Martín)
Sánchez (son of Sancho, a popular name in northern Spanish Middle Ages of pre-Roman origin and unclear etimology)
Pérez (son of Pedro)
Gómez (son of Gome, of Gmc or.)
Martín (son of Martín)
Jiménez (son of Jimeno, analogous to Sancho)
Ruiz (son of Ruy, short form of Rodrigo)
Hernández (son of Hernando, from Fernando)
Díaz (son of Diego)
Moreno (tan or brown/black haired)
Álvarez (son of Álvaro, of Gmc or.)
Muñoz (son of Muño)
Romero (rosemary, or pilgrim, particularly if to Rome)
Alonso (from the given name Alonso, of Gmc or.)
Gutiérrez (son of Gutierre, ", cognate to Walter)

So Spanish most common surnames are, except for very minor exceptions, derived from patronyms -used in the Middle Ages instead of surnames- themselves deriving from such names as were popular then. This could make the misleading impression that the great majority of surnames in Spain are like this, but it these 20 amount only to the 25% of all the Spanish population. However, in the next 80, only 21-23 -I have doubts regarding whether those two are or not patronyms- are so, scattered among them. 

As I can extract from a random list of names, choosing always rather common ones as far as I can discern, we have general toponyms -Vargas (slopes), Moral (mulberry tree), Castillo (castle), Puga (hill, in some romanic Spanish language, but not Castilian), Serrano (somebody from the mountains)- descriptive surnames -Hermoso (fair), Rubio (fair-haired), Calvo (bald)- simple nouns whose relation to the person I cannot see clear -Guerra (war), Flores (flowers)- concrete toponyms -Zamora (a town in western Spain), Alfaro (a town in La Rioja, in northern Spain), León (a city in north-western Spain, seat of the kings of the former homonymous kingdom; also "lion"), Navarro (somebody from Navarre, former kingdom and region of Spain)- denoting status -Caballero (knight), Conde (count)- and indeed professions -Pastor (shepherd), Arriero (muleteer), Cirujano (surgeon)- although they are much rarer with the exceptions of "Pastor" and "Herrero" (smith), or religious -Salvador (saviour), Santana (saint Anne)... With this I intend to give a hint of the most common types of surnames -after the patronyms- given that these are only about one third of the total.

On the contrary, Basque surnames are nearly always toponymical, either the name of a house -most of the times named after the place where it stands, which would be a general toponym- or the name of a village, which usually has also the form of a general toponym, in that it can usually be separated in its constituent parts, and each makes sense on its own in the language spoken today; or a general toponym itself. Thus, it is not easy to distinguish between them. Although the most common surnames in all the four Basque-speaking provinces are patronyms from the crown of Castile such as I just showed -due to heavy internal immigration, mostly from western Spain during the 20th century, even though they did occur before- a half or more of people's surnames are of Basque origin in areas where Basque is spoken or has been spoken until recently -in other areas, autoctonous romanic developments are found, mostly patronyms and toponyms. In the list of the 50 most common surnames in each province, below the top ten the local ones tend to predominate.

A non-exhaustive list shows:

Uriarte, Iriarte -between town(s)
Urrutia -a place far away
Madariaga -a river side with pear trees
Arana -valley, plum (tree)
Goñi -a village, apparently related to "goi" (top)
Etxeberria/Etxebarria -new house
Ochoa -wolf
Huarte/Ugarte -island, between waters
Elizalde/Elizondo -next to the church
Aguirre
Arrieta -place with rocks
Odriozola

as somewhat common Basque surnames, although by no means comprising an important portion of the population of Basque-speaking areas, as a lot of surnames exist scattered throughout the territory, some as full of colour as Ansoátegui, a toponym itself derived from an antroponym (a variation of Sancho) and a suffix indicating "place", Galzaraborda -shed by the road, or Aguirregomezcorta, a compound surname from "Aguirre", "Gómez" and "Corta", meaning "pen", "stall" or "stable".


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## Hulalessar

ewie said:


> Nickname surnames also constitute some of our commonest surnames: _Brown, Green, White_, etc.



Can anyone explain why _Brown_, _Green_, _White_, _Black _and _Grey _are common surnames but _Red_, _Yellow _and _Blue _are not?


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## Macunaíma

Ivonne do Tango said:


> Los apellidos aborígenes: en quechua-tupí guaraní-mocobí-mapuches-tehuelches-onas, etc., etc... No conozco ninguna persona que tenga un apellido originario de nuestra tierra


 
In Brazil, soon after the independence from Portugal in 1822, many families, in a wave of nationalism, adopted names of indigenous origin; interestingly enough, this happened chiefly among aristocratic families who supported independence, many of them descendants of Portuguese noble houses, so it isn't very common nor very authentic . In my city of origin, Diamantina (once the richest city in the whole Portuguese Empire), there are two such cases: the Cangussu family and the Pitanguy family (among whose members is the plastic surgeon Ivo Pitanguy). Other names taken from indigenous peoples I can remember are Tupinambás and Pirajá (the latter was adopted as the family name of a Viscount). Modernly, it is common for indigenous people to adopt the name of their ethnic group as their surname when they leave their _aldeias -- _in Minas Gerais, I know of the Krenák and Maxacali groups who adopt this practice.


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## javier8907

Hulalessar said:


> Can anyone explain why _Brown_, _Green_, _White_, _Black _and _Grey _are common surnames but _Red_, _Yellow _and _Blue _are not?



An interesting question. In Spain, "Blanco" (white) is most common, then "Pardo" (brown), then "Rojo" and "Bermejo" (both meaning red), while "Negro", "Verde" (green), Amarillo (yellow)... are rarer.


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## basslop

javier8907 said:


> An interesting question. In Spain, "Blanco" (white) is most common, then "Pardo" (brown), then "Rojo" and "Bermejo" (both meaning red), while "Negro", "Verde" (green), Amarillo (yellow)... are rarer.



In Norway colour surnames are very rare. Of those who have such names, Brun (=Brown) and Rø(e)d (=Red) are the most common. A few are named Grøn(n) (=Green).  Other colour are in practice absent. There are of course ancestors of immigrants that have colour name in their own langauage (Schwartz, White, Amarillo etc).

Most surnames in Norway are of type "-sen" which corresponds to "-son" in English. The rest are mostly names describing nature elements, like -berg/-fjell (rock/mountain), -vann (water), -ås/-li/-bakke (hill), jordet (field), -myr (moor), -skog (wood), etc. I would guess that the colour names are a kind of description of nature. Røed may for instance describe that the family has its origin at a place with red sunsets or very strong autumn colours.


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## javier8907

So Erik the Red would have come from such a place...

I would rather say they come from nicknames, as many other surnames in a lot of languages. Without thinking much I can remember another instance of a nickname related to colour, Fulques Nerra (black), from the French 10th-11th centuries.


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## Plzenak

Hulalessar said:


> Can anyone explain why _Brown_, _Green_, _White_, _Black _and _Grey _are common surnames but _Red_, _Yellow _and _Blue _are not?


 
In Czech republic the most common ´colour surnames´ are Černý(Black) , Šedivý (Grey) , Červený (Red) , Bílý ( White) 

The most common surnames of all are following :
 Novák ( nový=new)
Novotný
Svoboda(=freedom)
Černý(=black)
Dvořák
Kovář(=smith) 
Horák ( hora=mountain)
Procházka(=a walk)
Veselý(=merry)


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## sdr083

basslop said:


> Most surnames in Norway are of type "-sen" which corresponds to "-son" in English. The rest are mostly names describing nature elements, like -berg/-fjell (rock/mountain), -vann (water), -ås/-li/-bakke (hill), jordet (field), -myr (moor), -skog (wood), etc. I would guess that the colour names are a kind of description of nature. Røed may for instance describe that the family has its origin at a place with red sunsets or very strong autumn colours.



Most common surnames in Norway (from Statistisk Sentralbyrå):1. Hansen
 2. Johansen
 3. Olsen
 4. Larsen
 5. Andersen
 6. Pedersen
 7. Nilsen
 8. Kristiansen
 9. Jensen
 10.Karlsen
 11.Johnsen
 12.Pettersen
 13.Eriksen
 14.Berg
 15.Haugen
 16.Hagen
 17.Johannessen
 18.Andreassen
 19.Halvorsen
 21.Dahl
 22.Jørgensen
 23.Henriksen
 24.Lund
 25.Sørensen​As you can see the grand majority were originally patronymics, but are now used as surnames.  Very few people in Norway use true patronymics nowadays (they still exist though).  As a general rule, when it was decided around 1900 that by law everyone had to have a surname, most people chose either such a patronymic or the name of the farm they lived on.  Most farm names are topographic descriptions.   The names Berg, Haugen, Hagen, Dahl and Lund mean (small) mountain, the hill, the garden, valley and grove, respectively.


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## Favara

Most frequent "color" surnames in Catalan would be _Roig_ (red), _Blanc_ (white) and maybe _Negre_ (black).

Maybe _Roig_ and _Negre_ don't really refer to the color itself, since in the southern areas of País Valencià (and maybe other places as well) these words are used to call strangers, depending on the color of their hair... _Negre/negra_ for black or dark brown hair or _roig/roja_ for light brown/blond/red hair (I think this is a dialectal transformation of _ros/rossa_, meaning blond, and not "red").
This makes some dark-skinned (and hence dark-haired) immigrants think we're racist, since we're literally calling them like "hey you, black!"... Most don't notice we also call eachother "black".


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## milanoinnevata

Very interesting discussion!
I was wondering if in other languages surnames expecially made for orphans are common. In Italian among the most common surnames we have "Esposito" (that means exposed, abandoned child) from Naples and "Colombo" (which comes from a marble statue representing a pigeon, symbol of the hospital in Milan, where children were left).
Looking through the posts, it doesn't seem there's something similar in other languages... or maybe they're just not that common?


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## Agró

milanoinnevata said:


> Very interesting discussion!
> I was wondering if in other languages surnames expecially made for orphans are common. In Italian among the most common surnames we have "Esposito" (that means exposed, abandoned child) from Naples and "Colombo" (which comes from a marble statue representing a pigeon, symbol of the hospital in Milan, where children were left).
> Looking through the posts, it doesn't seem there's something similar in other languages... or maybe they're just not that common?



In Spanish there's also Expósito, and Blanco is frequent among orphans.


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## Valeria Mesalina

milanoinnevata said:


> I was wondering if in other languages surnames expecially made for orphans are common. In Italian among the most common surnames we have "Esposito" (that means exposed, abandoned child) from Naples (...)
> Looking through the posts, it doesn't seem there's something similar in other languages... or maybe they're just not that common?



I wrote about it a couple of pages ago.



Valeria Mesalina said:


> There is, too, a terrible name quite common here: Expósito (abandoned at birth). I can only imagine that, due to the massive male emigration during past centuries, the number of illegitimate chidren spread like fire.



I don´t know how abandoned children were named in other countries; I remember Oliver was named Twist because "he came in the "T´s". But that, of course, happened in a novel.


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## Bartocus123

milanoinnevata said:


> Very interesting discussion!
> I was wondering if in other languages surnames expecially made for orphans are common. In Italian among the most common surnames we have "Esposito" (that means exposed, abandoned child) from Naples and "Colombo" (which comes from a marble statue representing a pigeon, symbol of the hospital in Milan, where children were left).
> Looking through the posts, it doesn't seem there's something similar in other languages... or maybe they're just not that common?



Sirota or Sirotta (from Russian "сирота", "orphan") is a common ukrainian/russian and mainly jewish surname.

Once I heard that, in certain historical period, orphans were name after an orphanage called "Santamaría" -one of the more or less common spanish surnames-, maybe it's just a "popular myth".

Concernig to colour-related surnames, spanish "Negrete" is one of them and Italian "Nero" (black).

Here some of the rarer spanish surnames:

Bueno = Good
Feo = Ugly
Delgado = Thin
Grande = Big
Maestro = Master, magister
Rico = Rich
Leal = Loyal
Clemente = Merciful
Cabeza de Vaca = Cow's head
Lazo = Bound
Caballero and Zaldívar, both meanid "knight", the last one of basque origin.


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## gatogab

HUMBERT0 said:


> García . Of Pre-Roman origin, either Iberian or Basque


 Garcéz = hijo de García.


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## gatogab

Me pregunto y les pregunto, ¿a qué se debe la formación de los apellidos dobles?

Recuerdo un compañero de liceo llamado:
_Juan Agustín García Moreno García Huidobro._


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## ManPaisa

gatogab said:


> Me pregunto y les pregunto, ¿a qué se debe la formación de los apellidos dobles?
> 
> Recuerdo un compañero de liceo llamado:
> _Juan Agustín García Moreno García Huidobro._



Al afán de diferenciarse de tantos otros Garcías.


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## gatogab

ManPaisa said:


> Al afán de diferenciarse de tantos otros Garcías.


 ¡Qué raro!
Así como dices, no hicieron más que complicarse la existencia.
Sobre todo  si van a paises donde hay espacio sólo para un nombre y un apellido en los papeles burocráticos.


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## ManPaisa

gatogab said:


> Sobre todo  si van a paises donde hay espacio sólo para un nombre y un apellido en los papeles burocráticos.


Pues, que los unan, como lo hicieron los Finzi-Continis de la ficción.


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## gatogab

ManPaisa said:


> Pues, que los unan, como lo hicieron los Finzi-Continis de la ficción.


 


> Finales de los años treinta en Ferrara, Italia. Los Finzi Contini son una de las familias más influyentes de la ciudad. Ricos, aristocráticos, urbanos... y también judíos.


 
Si interesa el argumento, pinchar *aquí*


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## 20100

The major problem in Quebec with surnames, is that there are alot of variations of surnames. The problem comes from the fact that most of the population, since the period of Lower and Upper Canada, were illiterated. Most of the French Canadian at that time were farmers. Only small part of the French population had an important job such as doctor, lawyer, etc.
Even in the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of the population was still illitared. The ideas promoted by the Church did not help at all. They promoted values such as the family, fear of strangers, the importance of having a land (''le retour à la terre), etc.
The goal of the Church was to «protect» the french culture from its «ennemies». Thus, the Church said that French Canadians had to closing in on themselves to survive.
The fact that they were illiterated did not leave any written documents which would give the appropriate form of the surname.

Otherwise than that, it seems that most of the surnames in Quebec come from the first wave of immigrants from France which arrived on the new land.

Source:http://www.genealogie.umontreal.ca/fr/nomsPrenoms.htm
(Univerty of Montreal's research on first names and surnames.)


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## shawnee

milanoinnevata said:


> Very interesting discussion!
> I was wondering if in other languages surnames expecially made for orphans are common. In Italian among the most common surnames we have "Esposito" (that means exposed, abandoned child) from Naples and "Colombo" (which comes from a marble statue representing a pigeon, symbol of the hospital in Milan, where children were left).
> Looking through the posts, it doesn't seem there's something similar in other languages... or maybe they're just not that common?



In Greek there is Βρετ(τ)ός [Vretos] - foundling. I have also heard the Italian derived Βεντούρας - Ventouras - of the wind, mentioned in this regard but I'm not sure.

Edit: Somewhat related to the above are the surnames: Αγοραστός (Agorastos - bought) and Πουλημένος (Poulimenos - sold).


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## Stoggler

Back to Wales!

The Welsh, as with other parts of the world (e.g. other Celtic-speaking countries, Scandinavia), used to employ patronymics, formed with the word *ap* and then the father's name. So, for example, a famous 13th Welsh prince was Llywelyn ap Gruffydd - Llywelyn's father was called Gruffydd. Sometimes, you got a list of names going back a number of generations (so you might have something like Gwilym ap Dafydd ap Llywelyn ap Rhys ap Llywelyn etc etc). 

The word *ab* was used if the name followed starts with a vowel (e.g. Llywelyn ab Iorwerth) - means the same as ap (son of) but the change in vowel is related to sound changes related to Welsh consonant mutation rules.

Women used *ferch* (meaning daughter of) instead of *ap* (e.g. Gwladys ferch Llywelyn).

This patronymic system is the origin of many of the common Welsh surnames, which were anglicised by simply sticking an 's' on the end of the anglicised name (hence Williams, Evans (from the name Ifan), Jones (from the name Ioan)).

In Wales today, especially amongst the Welsh-speaking community, the traditional patronymic system is gaining ground again and some people have "welshified" their names back to a traditional Welsh name, or have taken their father's given name as their new patronymic surname, so you do get some people with *ap* in their full names again.


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## Encolpius

*Hungarian *(2009 data)

1. Nagy (big)
2. Kovács (smith)
3. Tóth (Slovak)
4. Szabó (tailor)
5. Horváth (Croatian)
6. Varga (cobbler)
7. Kiss (klein)
8. Molnár (miller)
9. Németh (Deutsch)
10. Farkas (wolf)
11. Balogh (left-handed)
12. Papp (priest)
13. Takács (weaver)
14. Juhász (shepherd)
15. Lakatos (locksmith; most common Roma surname)
16. Mészáros (butcher)
17. Oláh (Wallachian)
18. Simon (Sim(e)on)
19. Rácz (Serbian)
20. Fekete (black)


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## alinapopi

Hola,

En rumano tenemos / In Romanian we have:

- Popescu; (from _Pop_ I suppose)
- Ionescu; (Ion)
- Georgescu; (George)
- Marinescu; (Marin)
- Teodorescu... (Teodor)

Los apellidos más comunes acaban en _-escu _y suelen formarse a raíz de nombres de pila.

Saludos.


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## Blas de Lezo

*SPAIN*

Here's a list of the 10 most common surnames in *Spain *with translation in english.

NOTE: Suffix *-ez* is pre-roman, maybe celtiberian, and it means "son of". (for example, Fernández is "son of Fernando"). But as Fernando means "Daring Pacificator", ultimate translation would be "son of the Daring Pacifactor".


1. *García *– 1.378.000 (3,48%) discussed origin, although pre-roman, maybe from celtiberian or basque, meaning "_prince of beautiful look_", or "_young_", or "_bear_", depending on interpretations.

 2. *Fernández *– 851.000 (2,15%) son of Fernando  (_son of the Daring Pacificator_).

 3. *González *– 839.000 (2,12%) son of Gonzalo (_son of the One 
Willing to Fight_).

 4. *Rodríguez *– 804.000 (2,03%) son of Rodrigo (_son of the One Famed by his Strenght_).

 5. *López *– 796.000 (2,01%) son of Lope (_son of the Wolf_).

 6. *Martínez *– 788.000 (1,97%) son of Martín (_son the Warrior of Mars_).

 7. *Sánchez *– 725.000 (1,83%) son of Sancho (_son of the Saint_).

 8. *Pérez *– 709.000 (1,79%) son of Pedro (_son of the Stone_).

 9. *Martín *– 459.000 (1,16%) _Warrior of Mars_.

 10. *Gómez *– 440.000 (1,11%) son of Gome/Guillermo (son of the Strong Protector)

These are almost all patronimical surnames (you name after your father), but there are many others not patronimical such as:

 TOPONIMICALS SURNAMES: (place of origin)

*Soriano *(_from Soria_)
*Barceló *(_from Barcelona_)
*Riancho *(_from the Wide River_)
*del Bosque* (_from the Woods_)
*del Río* (_from the River_)
*del Puente* (_from the Bridge_)
*de la Torre* (_from the Tower_)
(in this case the preposition "de" doesn't indicate nobility. "De" as a preposition of nobility usually is followed by the family name, not a toponim; for example: "Marqués de Santillana" (Marquis of Santillana)

 PROFESSION SURNAMES: 

*Herrero/Ferrero *(_Blacksmith_)
*Ballester/Ballestero/Ballesteros *(_Crossbow Soldier_)
*Caballero *(_Knight_)
*Molinero *(_Miller_)
*Panadero *(_Baker_)

 NICKNAMES/DESCRIPTIONS:

*Alegre *(_Joyful_)
*Cortés *(_Courteous_)
*Calvo *(_Bald_)
*Matamoros *(_Moorslayer_)


----------



## windhair

Interesting topic.
Chinese surname is given in some different way. Principally you can build a surname with any one or two Chinese characters. A few parents begin to build surname with more than two characters now, but this is not recommended, because it will cause some typsetting porblem when fill a formular, which generally have maximum 4 spaces for a full name, (maxinum 2 characters for family name and another 2 for surname).

Oh, most commen name now in China? lets me think about that:
Here I give the Chinese Charaters, Chinese phonetic, english meaning and German meaning (for Frank )
Male:
伟 （Wei）  - great, magnificent, gross (de)
强 （Qiang）- strong, stark (de)
军 (Jun) - army, Heer (de)
明 （Ming）- light, hell (de)
刚 (Gang) - strong, hard, stark(de), hart(de)

Female:
芳 (Fang) - fragrant, duftend(de)
红 (Hong) - Red,  rot(de)
淑 (Shu) - gentle, charming, mild (de), sanftmuetig(de)
洁 (jie) - pure, virtuous, sanctity , heilig (de)


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## linguist786

The commenest Gujarati surname has to be *PATEL*!
Then Desai, Naik.. can't think of anymore.

I remember in La Réunion (Réunion Island, French overseas department), the commonest Indian surname there was *Omarji*.


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## pizzi

milanoinnevata said:


> Very interesting discussion!
> I was wondering if in other languages surnames expecially made for orphans are common. In Italian among the most common surnames we have "Esposito" (that means exposed, abandoned child) from Naples


 
In Italy there are also _Degli Innocenti, Innocenti_ (not guilty) and _Esposti, Degli Esposti_ (in the same meaning of Esposito).


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## Vanda

pizzi said:


> In Italy there are also _Degli Innocenti, Innocenti_ (not guilty) and _Esposti, Degli Esposti_ (in the same meaning of Esposito).


Right. IN my hometown we have many Espositos, Italian descendents like me. Anyway, as half of the population in my hometown is of Italian origin, you'll find the most common Italian surnames there (but mine that is rare even in Italy).


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## ilocas2

I found list of 1000 most frequent surnames in Czech Republic, so here are 20 most frequent:

1. Novák (nový = new)
2. Svoboda (it literally means "freedom")
3. Novotný (nový = new)
4. Dvořák (dvůr = court, yard)
5. Černý (it literally means "black")
6. Procházka (it l. m. "a walk")
7. Kučera (no idea what it means)
8. Veselý (it l. m. "cheerful" or "merry")
9. Horák (hora = mountain)
10. Němec (it l. m. "a German")
11. Marek (male name "Mark")
12. Pokorný (it l. m. "humble")
13. Pospíšil (pospíšit si = to hurry up)
14. Hájek (háj = grove)
15. Jelínek (it l. m. "small deer")
16. Král (it. l. m. "king")
17. Růžička (it l. m. "small rose")
18. Beneš (no idea what it means)
19. Fiala (fialový = violet)
20. Sedláček (sedlo = saddle)


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## Blechi

mirx said:


> México, and I assume all other Spanish-speaking countries, have surnames deriving from personal names, such as:
> Martin*ez* = Son of Martin.
> Fernand*ez* = Son of Ferdinand
> Per*ez* = Son of Peter.
> 
> These would be the commonest surnames.
> 
> Family names derived from occupations are also quite popular.
> 
> Herrera : Blacksmith
> Pescador: Fisherman.
> Molina : Miller
> Zapatero: Shoemaker
> 
> My mind is tired so I presume a lot of occupation-related names are escaping me.


 

I beg your pardon, Fernández means son of Fernando, not of Ferdinando, which would be Ferdinández 

... I guess you have Taylor too: Sastre


----------



## Blechi

Agró said:


> In Spanish there's also Expósito, and Blanco is frequent among orphans.


 
Hi Agrò.
I very well unbderstand why "Expósito" is, originally, a common name for orphans, but why "Blanco"? Does it depend on the colour of the tissue they were wrapped in before being "exposed"?

Is also "Rueda" such a surname? I thought it might be because of the wheel they were left in.


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## Hakro

Blechi said:


> Is also "Rueda" such a surname? I thought it might be because of the wheel they were left in.


Rueda is also a municipality in Spain. Maybe the surname refers to it?


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## swift

Blas de Lezo said:


> 8. *Pérez *[...] son of Pedro (_son of the Stone_).


Yo habría jurado que Pérez era un nombre hebreo.


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## PABLO DE SOTO

Hakro said:


> Rueda is also a municipality in Spain. Maybe the surname refers to it?


 
Surely.
Most Spanish surnames come from first names ( González, Pérez), place names ( Cáceres, Zamora)  physical appearence ( Rubio, Moreno, Calvo) and professions ( Zapatero, Herrero).


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## Agró

Blechi said:


> Hi Agrò.
> I very well unbderstand why "Expósito" is, originally, a common name for orphans, but why "Blanco"? Does it depend on the colour of the tissue they were wrapped in before being "exposed"?
> 
> Is also "Rueda" such a surname? I thought it might be because of the wheel they were left in.



Hi, Blechi. It could well be as you say or because orphans were thought of as being innocent creatures, and white, of course, represents innocence. Not sure.


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## mirx

Blechi said:


> I beg your pardon, Fernández means son of Fernando, not of Ferdinando, which would be Ferdinández
> 
> ... I guess you have Taylor too: Sastre


 
We have taylors too, and my post was translated. To my knowledge Fernando is Ferdinand in (old) English, although presumibly now Gaga's Fernando might be much more fashionable.


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## Hakro

Agró said:


> It could well be as you say or because orphans were thought of as being innocent creatures, and white, of course, represents innocence. Not sure.


Just a guess: For an orphan, in the church register of people, it was _blanco_ where the parents names should be. What do you think?


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## Agró

Hakro said:


> Just a guess: For an orphan, in the church register of people, it was _blanco_ where the parents names should be. What do you think?



You mean a _blank_ space? Well, it might be so.


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## Vasiliy

rusita preciosa said:


> 4. Попов (Popov) – son of a priest (yes, Orthodox priests are allowed – even encouraged – to have large families and boy they did, hence Popov is 4th most common family name! )


 
Cool lol, in my family we nicknamed one of my uncles Popov. He's not the son of a priest though, far from.


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## Fernando

swift said:


> Yo habría jurado que Pérez era un nombre hebreo.



No. Pérez or Peres are found among Sephardi Jews (as an example, Simon Peres) but (as far as I know), not in Askenazi Jews since it is an Iberian surname whose origin is the same as Martínez, Gómez, etc.


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## treulen

Una duda: ¿López es "hijo de Lope"? (como Lope de Vega). ¿Se sigue usando el nombre Lope en España?


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## PABLO DE SOTO

treulen said:


> Una duda: ¿López es "hijo de Lope"? (como Lope de Vega). ¿Se sigue usando el nombre Lope en España?


 
Sí, Lope es hijo de Lope.
No es un nombre que se use actualmente...ahora bien, hay una tendencia entre los pijos españoles desde hace unos años que es rescatar para sus hijos nombres olvidados con resonancias medievales etc. como Alonso o Beltrán, con lo cual no hay que descartar que dentro de unos pocos años se pongan de moda los Lopes.


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## francisgranada

There is an other kind of orphan surnames, or surnames of children that were not wanted and therefore abbandoned and left in a place where someone could find them:

_Delarue, Delerue _    (French, of/from the street)
_(de) Léglise_     (French, of/from the church)
_Dalla Chiesa_     (Italian, from the church) 
_Casagrande_     (Italian/Spanish, big house)
_(van de) Kerkhof_     (Dutch, court of the church)
_Kirchhof_     (German, court of the church)
_Temple _(English, church)

etc....

(Of course, these surnames can have also different histories in some cases)


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## gatogab

Los apellidos _Santamaría  _y _Santacruz, _al fin y al cabo, ¿son de origen sefardita?


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## Vasiliy

francisgranada said:


> _(van de) Kerkhof_ (Dutch, court of the church)


 
Not to be annoying or anything but _(van de) Kerkhof actually means (from the) Graveyard, hof does mean court and kerk means church and kerkhof means such literally, but it's not used that way as far as I know. Just so you know _


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## francisgranada

Some examples of typical Hungarian surnames:

_ 1. Geografical origin_ 
Buda*i*  (from Buda)
Szeged*i* (from Szeged)
Kassa*i* (from Kassa, today Košice in Slovakia)
Hernád*i* (from Hernád - a river)
Tátra*i* (Tatras - the mountains)
etc.  

_ 2. From personal names_ 
Péter*fi* (son of Peter)
Pál*fi* (son of Paul)
Jáno*ssi* < János*fi* (son of John)
Andrá*ssi* < András*fi* (son of Andreas)
etc.

(In the above examples, for historical reasons, we find often -y instead of -i: Pálff*y*, Kassa*y*, Adráss*y* etc.)

_ 3. Ethnonyms_ 
Német (German)
Orosz (Russian)
Olasz (Italian)
Lengyel (Polish)
Tóth (Slovak, but former also other Slavs)
Oláh (Romanian)
etc.

_ 4. Nicknames  _
Kövér (thick)
Nagy (big)
Kis (small)
Sas (eagle)
Szép (nice)

Veres (red)
Fekete (Black)
Barna (brown)
Fehér (white)
Szőke (blond)
(I don't know any yellow, green or blue ...) 

_5. Occupation_ 
Szabó (tailor)
 Varga (shoemaker)
Juhász (shepherd)
Kovács (smith)
Halász (fisherman)
etc.

_ There are also some not very frequent, but "interseting" surnames like: _
Bornemisza (drinks-not-wine; see "El Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza"  in Madrid)
Verespej (red-horse)
Nagykiserős (big-little-strong)
etc.


----------



## juandiego

swift said:


> Yo habría jurado que Pérez era un nombre hebreo.


I've always heard the explanation already provided: son of Pedro, and this latter coming from the Latin name Petrus (stone, piedra), perhaps given by the very Jesus Christ to Simon Petrus, the first Pope.

However, what I've heard, though don't know how much accurate, is that many toponymycal surnames were chosen by the Jews, who were forced to decide between to abandon the country or to adopt Christianity, in order to comply with that moment's requirements on the matter of Christian names.


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## pizzi

Fernando said:


> No. Pérez or Peres are found among Sephardi Jews (as an example, Simon Peres) but (as far as I know), not in Askenazi Jews since it is an Iberian surname whose origin is the same as Martínez, Gómez, etc.



Shimon Peres, born *Szymon Perski*, in Višnieva, nowadays Belarus. He has had an Ashkenazi education.


----------



## Fernando

My mistake. According to this source, the change of Perski in Peres was done to hebraize the name. Anyhow, I still doubt why someone would be called 'bearded vulture'. I copy a Wiki explanation.

http://theochem.weizmann.ac.il/~comartin/israelinames.txt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearded_Vulture

Anyhow, Perez, Peres and variations are common Sephardic surnames. This page derives it from the Bible. Anyhow, I find 'Perez' in English Bibles and 'Fares' in Spanish Bibles, so it is still doubtful to me if nowadays 'Perez/Peres' Israelites (those who have not changed its last surname, as Shimon) are 'Perezites' or Iberian Sephardics who, simpler, held one of the most common Spanish/Portuguese surnames.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/12697183/Sephardic-Surnames


----------



## gurseal

Hulalessar said:


> Can anyone explain why _Brown_, _Green_, _White_, _Black _and _Grey _are common surnames but _Red_, _Yellow _and _Blue _are not?


When I was younger, there was an athlete--a baseball player, I think--whose name was Vida Blue. This was in USA, but I don't know the athlete's background. I recognize _vida_ as _life_, and a number of baseball players were of Latin American background.

I don't know of any others named Blue.


----------



## Ben Jamin

mirx said:


> México, and I assume all other Spanish-speaking countries, have surnames deriving from personal names, such as:
> Martin*ez* = Son of Martin.
> Fernand*ez* = Son of Ferdinand
> Per*ez* = Son of Peter.
> 
> These would be the commonest surnames.
> 
> Family names derived from occupations are also quite popular.
> 
> Herrera : Blacksmith
> Pescador: Fisherman.
> Molina : Miller
> Zapatero: Shoemaker
> 
> My mind is tired so I presume a lot of occupation-related names are escaping me.


 
Yes, you forgot the most popular Spanish surname is García, which is used by 1300000 people in Spain alone.


----------



## sokol

Frank78 said:


> In Germany most surnames derived from occupations.
> 
> 1. Schmidt/Schmitt/Schmid/Schmit/etc. (blacksmith)
> 2. Meyer/Mayer/Meier/Maier/etc. (a tenant or a civil servant)
> 3. Müller (miller)
> 4. Schneider (tailor)
> 5. Fischer (fisherman)
> 6. Weber (weaver)
> 7. Wagner (wainwright)



There are regional differences though - see here.

Austria by the way differs significantly; the most common ones in Austria are (source):
1. Gruber
2. Huber
3. Bauer

Such lists also are problematic as of many names there exist varieties which are too different to be listed as "variants", like "Huber, Humer, Hueber, Huemer" - they all, essentially, mean a "farmer owing a >hube<" = a defined size of arable land = a farmer of a certain size. This is a very common name in both Austria and Bavaria - but exists in a broad variety of spellings.


----------



## Keith Bradford

Here in Brittany, all the French surnames are used of course.  But there are also specifically Breton ones which include:

Le Men (stone, as in _menhir_, a standing-stone)
Le Coat (wood, compare the Welsh _coed_)
Le Bihan (small)
Le Braz (large)
Le Calvez (bald)
Le Dantec (toothy)

An interesting name, widespread in my locality, is Aurégan, derived from two Irish settlers call O'Reagan.


----------



## Keith Bradford

Hulalessar said:


> Can anyone explain why _Brown_, _Green_, _White_, _Black _and _Grey _are common surnames but _Red_, _Yellow _and _Blue _are not?


 
Because there are a lot of people whose ancestors lived on a village *green*, or else had *brown, white, black *or *grey* hair.  Not many had red hair, and they were nicknamed Redhead (here in France LeRoux).

But yellow and blue hair are rather rarer...


----------



## francisgranada

Keith Bradford said:


> Because there are a lot of people whose ancestors lived on a village *green*, or else had *brown, white, black *or *grey* hair. Not many had red hair, and they were nicknamed Redhead (here in France LeRoux).
> 
> But yellow and blue hair are rather rarer...


 
Or maybe the opposite is true: in Great Brittain, many people have red or "reddish" hair, so such a surname would not be distinctive enaugh. Surnames like Rosso (Italian), Veres/Vörös (Hungarian), Roth (German) ... are not rare at all. 

In Hungarian there is also _Szőke_, that is blond.


----------



## Fernando

In Spanish Rojo (red), Blanco (white), Rubio (blonde) Moreno (brown-haired or dark-skinned) or Cano (grey-haired) are common. 

Verde (green) only in Valverde (Green Valley) or Villaverde (Green Town). Amarillo (yellow) is very uncommon. Azul (Blue) is unknown to me as a surname.

So, I agree with Keith's explanation.


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## pizzi

In Italy color surnames are referred to hair, but also to escutcheon.
Giallo (yellow) is part of Giallombardo surname, but this form probably derives from Gian (name) Lombardo (surname).
Blue surnames – at least in the sound   –  are Ciano (toponym), and Celestini (monastic order).
In Sardinia there are Ruju (red) and Nieddu (black).


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## Ben Jamin

federicoft said:


> According to this site, these are the 20 most common surnames in Italy.
> 
> 
> Rossi
> Russo
> Ferrari
> Esposito
> Bianchi
> Romano
> Colombo
> Ricci
> Marino
> Greco
> Bruno
> Gallo
> Conti
> De Luca
> Costa
> Giordano
> Mancini
> Rizzo
> Lombardi
> Moretti
> The first two mean "redhead", with Russo being specifically Southern Italian. Ferrari means "smith". The other surnames refer to geographical locations (Romani - from Rome; Greco - Greek; Lombardi - Lombard), phisical features (Ricci and Rizzo - curly hair; Mancini - left-handed; Bruno - dark-haired) or derive from Latin names (Marino, Colombo, De Luca).


 
The names ending in '-i', aren't they comosed of place names added a an adjectival formant (Lombardi from Lombardy, Ferrari from Ferrara)?


----------



## pizzi

From Ferrara, the surname could be Ferraresi


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## Ben Jamin

alinapopi said:


> Hola,
> 
> En rumano tenemos / In Romanian we have:
> 
> - Popescu; (from _Pop_ I suppose)
> - Ionescu; (Ion)
> - Georgescu; (George)
> - Marinescu; (Marin)
> - Teodorescu... (Teodor)
> 
> Los apellidos más comunes acaban en _-escu _y suelen formarse a raíz de nombres de pila.
> 
> Saludos.


 I understand that -escu surnames were originally patronymics: Teodorescu = son of Teodor


----------



## Ben Jamin

Polish most popular surnames:

Nowak           new man (a newly settled farmer in the village), 0,53% of population
Kowalski        kowal: smith, Kowalski may come from a village name Kowale
Wiśniewski     wiśnia: cherry, probably toponymic
Wójcik           patronymic, a village mayor’s son (*wójt *from ger. Voigt)
Kowalczyk     patronymic, a smith’s son
Kamiński        kamień: stone, probably toponymic
Lewandowski   allegedly from Levant
Zieliński         zielony: green, probably toponymic
Szymański      Szymon: Simon, patronymic or toponymic (from Szymany village)
Woźniak         patronymic, a coachman’s or cartwright’s son
Dąbrowski     dąbrowa: a birch forest, toponymic
Kozłowski      probably toponymic (from Kozłowo village) koza: goat
Jankowski      patronymic, Jan’s son
Mazur            toponymic, from Mazowsze (Mazovia)
Wojciechowski   patronymic, Wojciech’s son
Kwiatkowski    kwiat: flower, probably toponymic (from Kwiatkowo village)
Krawczyk       patronymic, a taylor’s son
Kaczmarek     patronymic, an innkeeper’s son
Piotrowski      patronymic (Piotr’s son) or toponymic (from Piotrowo village)
Grabowski     grab: hornbeam tree, probably toponymic (from Grabowo village), 0,15 % of population


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## francisgranada

Ben Jamin said:


> The names ending in '-i', aren't they comosed of place names added a an adjectival formant (Lombardi from Lombardy, Ferrari from Ferrara)?


 
No, there is no suffix or adjectival formant *-i* in Italian for place names. As far as I know, this *-i* comes from the Latin genitive endings, e.g. Martin's son: Martini filius > *Martini*, or the Count's son: Comitis filius > *Conti.*

The most frequent endigs for place names are -ese, -ano, -ino: Romano, Torinese, Fiorentino, Milanese... 

We often find Ferraresi (like in the Pizzi's example), Milanesi ... instead of Ferrarese, Milanese ... It would be intersting to know why we have *-i* instead of -*e* in these cases. Maybe Ferraresi was originally the son of Ferrarese ... but don't know.


----------



## infinite sadness

Penso che Ferraresi, Milanesi deriva dal fatto di nominare un gruppo di persone usando il plurale. Spesso questi cognomi si trovano maggiormente in luoghi diversi dalla località che rappresentano, perché era facile individuare un forsestiero o un gruppo di forestieri con il nome della località di origine, anziché scervellarsi per inventare un nuovo appellativo. 
Così, il cognome "Siciliano" lo trovi molto di più fuori dalla sicilia che in sicilia.


----------



## francisgranada

infinite sadness said:


> Penso che Ferraresi, Milanesi deriva dal fatto di nominare un gruppo di persone usando il plurale...


 
Non penso, per due motivi:

1. Non mi pare logico un cognome in plurale (parliamo dei tempi quando i cognomi "nascono" quindi ancora si capiva bene il loro significato). Il plurale potrebbe essere logico con le preposizioni _di, de, da, _per esempio "Giovanni de Milanesi" (cioè quello dal gruppo dei milanesi), ma non credo che sia questo il caso tipico.

2. La terminazione *-i* nei cognomi italiani è molto diffusa e questo non solamente nel caso d'origine geografica o toponimica. Vedi p.e. _Bassi, Rossi, Belluzzi, Bellucci, Grandi, Fini, Pizzi, Berlusconi (!) ..._

Tutto sommato, secondo me è più probabile che si tratti d'una certa "generalizzazione" spontanea della desinenza *-i* sotto l'influenza dei cognomi in *-i* che derivano del nome del padre (una volta difusissimi in tutta la "Romània").


----------



## pizzi

francisgranada said:


> _ Fini, Pizzi, Berlusconi (!) ..._



Anche se il mio è un nickname, preferirei avere altri vicini...


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## francisgranada

pizzi said:


> Anche se il mio è un nickname, preferirei avere altri vicini...


 
Ciao  

Per compensazione ti offro alcuni dei miei vecchi amici: Galilei, Torricelli, Paganini, Alighieri, Bounarroti, Pavarotti.


----------



## Ben Jamin

francisgranada said:


> Ciao
> 
> Per compensazione ti offro alcuni dei miei vecchi amici: Galilei, Torricelli, Paganini, Alighieri, Bounarroti, Pavarotti.


 Galilei sounds like a patronymic formed from Galileo (Galileo, Galileo's son).


----------



## francisgranada

Ben Jamin said:


> Galilei sounds like a patronymic formed from Galileo (Galileo, Galileo's son).


 
Yes, you are right.

***************************
I think we could speak also about the rare surnames or about surnames with interesting meaning. E.g.:

Italian: Bevilacqua [Drink the water]
Italian: Mezzasalma [Half cadaver]

Hungarian: Bornemisza [Drinks not wine]
Hungarian: Kisnagyerős [Little big strong]

Czech: Jebavý [F***er]


----------



## infinite sadness

francisgranada said:


> Yes, you are right.
> 
> ***************************
> I think we could speak also about the rare surnames or about surnames with interesting meaning. E.g.:
> 
> Italian: Bevilacqua [Drink the water]
> Italian: Mezzasalma [Half cadaver]
> 
> Hungarian: Bornemisza [Drinks not wine]
> Hungarian: Kisnagyerős [Little big strong]
> 
> Czech: Jebavý [F***er]


Ciao Francis, ti devo contraddire, Mezzasalma non è half cadaver, la salma è una unità di misura dei terreni.


----------



## francisgranada

infinite sadness said:


> Ciao Francis, ti devo contraddire, Mezzasalma non è half cadaver, la salma è una unità di misura dei terreni.


 
Ciao Infinite, allora è probabile che in questo caso si tratti di quello che dici tu, ma lo stesso è un cognome interessante. 

Ma volendo si può tradurre anche con cadavere, no?


----------



## infinite sadness

Non credo proprio, essendo un cognome tipicamente siciliano, e qui il significato di salma è univoco e significa circa 40.000 metri quadri di terreno agricolo.
Certo, in italiano significa cadavere, ma non in siciliano.


----------



## francisgranada

infinite sadness said:


> Non credo proprio, essendo un cognome tipicamente siciliano, e qui il significato di salma è univoco e significa circa 40.000 metri quadri di terreno agricolo


 
Questo non sapevo. Allora la traduzione inglese del cognome Mezzasalma sarebbe "Twenty thousend square meters" . Non è meno interessante...


----------



## Bartocus123

Ben Jamin said:


> Wojciechowski   patronymic, Wojciech’s son



And what does Wojciech mean?


----------



## tyhryk

Ukrainian surnames frequently have such ends as: 
*-ко:* Шевченко (-ko: Shevchenko)
*-ук:* Кравчук (-uk: Kravchuk)
*-ик:* Олійник(-yk: Oliynyk)
*-ак:* Грицак (-ak: Hrytsak)
*-ич:* Станкевич(-ych: Stankevych)
*-ин:* Хомин (-yn: Khomyn)
*-ишин:* Петришин(-yshyn: Petryshyn)
*-ів: *Антонів(-iv: Antoniv)
*-кий/-ка:* Білецький/Білецька (-kyy/-ka: Biletskyy _(he_)/Biletska (_she_))

The most spread "colourful" surnames are Чорний/Чорна (_he/she_ Black) and Білий/Біла (_he/she_ White).

Ukrainian names are also surnames. For examlpe, Ольга Семен (Olha Semen): Ольга - a girl's name, Семен is her surname, but Семен is usually male name.


----------



## ilocas2

Continuation:

21. Doležal
22. Zeman (a noble title)
23. Kolář (wheeler)
24. Krejčí (tailor)
25. Navrátil (navrátit se = to return)
26. Čermák
27. Urban
28. Vaněk
29. Blažek (blaho = well-being)
30. Kříž (cross)
31. Kratochvíl (krátká chvíle = short moment)
32. Kovář (smith)
33. Bartoš
34. Kopecký (kopec = hill)
35. Vlček (small wolf)
36. Polák (Pole)
37. Musil (muset = must)
38. Šimek
39. Konečný (konec = end)
40. Malý (small)
41. Čech (Czech)
42. Kadlec
43. Štěpánek (little Stephan)
44. Holub (pigeon)
45. Staněk
46. Dostál (dostat = to get)
47. Soukup
48. Šťastný (happy)
49. Mareš
50. Moravec (Morava = Moravia)
51. Sýkora (tit (bird))
52. Tichý (silent)
53. Valenta
54. Vávra
55. Matoušek
56. Říha
57. Bláha
58. Ševčík (švec = shoemaker)
59. Bureš
60. Hruška (pear)
61. Pavlík (little Paul)
62. Dušek
63. Mašek
64. Hrubý (rough)
65. Havlíček
66. Janda
67. Mach
68. Liška (fox)
69. Beran (ram)
70. Bednář (cooper)

The surnames are just so old, that for non-linguists their origin is mostly obscure.


----------



## Ben Jamin

tyhryk said:


> Ukrainian surnames frequently have such ends as:
> *-ко* (-ko: Shevchenko)
> *-ук* (-uk: Kravchuk)
> *-ик* (-yk: Oliynyk)
> *-ич* (-ych: Stankevych)
> *-ин* (-yn: Khomyn)
> *-ишин* (-yshyn: Petryshyn)
> *-ів *(-iv: Antoniv)
> *-кий/-ка* (-kyy/-ka: Biletskyy _(he_)/Biletska (_she_))
> 
> The most spread "colourful" surnames are Чорний/Чорна (_he/she_ Black) and Білий/Біла (_he/she_ White).
> 
> Ukrainian names are also surnames. For examlpe, Ольга Семен (Olha Semen): Ольга - a girl's name, Семен is her surname, but Семен is usually male name.


 
All of these are patronymics, except *-кий/-ка*.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Bartocus123 said:


> And what does Wojciech mean?


 This is an old name consisting of elements woj (warrior) and ciech (joy).
This is a traditional interpretation though. Ciech may also have another meaning.


----------



## tyhryk

Ben Jamin said:


> All of these are patronymics, except *-кий/-ка*.


No, patronymic surnames are Хомин (from male name Хома), Антонів (from male name Антон), Петришин (from male name Петро). I also added surname with the end -ак (-ak), Грицак, and this surname is patronymic too (from male name Гриць or Григорій).
Шевченко - from Швець (shoemaker)
Кравчук - from Кравець (tailor)
Олійник means oiler
Станкевич means man working at machine factory 
Білецький/Білецька - from Білий/Біла (White) 

In Ukraine "profession's" surnames are very spread and are considered as Ukrainian. Кравець, Швець, Олійник, Ткач (weaver), Скляр (glaizer), Пастух (shepherd), Мельник (miller), Гонтар (man who works with gaunt), Бондар (hooper), Різник (butcher), Колесник (man who creates wheels), Кухар (cook), Чабан (shepherd), Коваль (smith), Чумак (chumaks were only in Ukraine, in the modern sense there were merchants which went to sell Ukrainian salt abroad), Дяк (cantor), Кобзар (kobzars were also only in Ukraine, people played on kobza, Ukrainian musical instrument), Співак (singer), Скрипник (violinist), Цимбалюк (man played on tsymbal, Ukrainian musical tool). 

Ukrainians have "food's" surnames  such as Буряк (beet), Гарбуз (pumpkin), Сало (fat), Вареник (Ukrainian food symbol ))), and "animal's" surnames: Горобець (sparrow), Заєць (rebbit), Котик (small cat), Коник (small horse), Орел (eagle).


----------



## Ben Jamin

tyhryk said:


> No, patronymic surnames are Хомин (
> Кравчук - from Кравець (tailor)


 Кравчук was once a taylor's son. This is a kind of patronymic too. You don't have to treat the patronymic term so narrowly as to equal it with 'отчество' in official names. Also the other endings can (or could be once) used to produce patronymics from various first names, professions, nicknames, and so on.


----------



## tyhryk

Ben Jamin said:


> Кравчук was once a taylor's son. This is a kind of patronymic too.


Well, surnames Кравчук, Кравців, Кравченко are derivative words from surname Кравець which means tailor. And if someone has one of such surnames it means that *the first man in his human family (many many years ago) was a tailor. *


Ben Jamin said:


> 'отчество'


I don't understand. Is it Ukrainian word?


----------



## pizzi

infinite sadness said:


> Penso che Ferraresi, Milanesi deriva dal fatto di nominare un gruppo di persone usando il plurale. Spesso questi cognomi si trovano maggiormente in luoghi diversi dalla località che rappresentano, perché era facile individuare un forsestiero o un gruppo di forestieri con il nome della località di origine, anziché scervellarsi per inventare un nuovo appellativo.
> Così, il cognome "Siciliano" lo trovi molto di più fuori dalla sicilia che in sicilia.



Vero. A Parma ci sono i _Reggiani_, a Reggio i _Parmigiani _e i _Parmiggiani_. Poi è chiaro che ora, con le migrazioni interne, le carte si mescolino...


----------



## Ben Jamin

tyhryk said:


> Well, surnames Кравчук, Кравців, Кравченко are derivative words from surname Кравець which means tailor. And if someone has one of such surnames it means that *the first man in his human family (many many years ago) was a tailor. *


Yes, and and the first one named Кравчук was his son.



tyhryk said:


> I don't understand. Is it Ukrainian word?


No, Russian, I do not know the Ukrainian word for patronymic. Are you offended?


----------



## tyhryk

Ben Jamin said:


> No, Russian, I do not know the Ukrainian word for patronymic.


In Ukrainian: по-батькові



Ben Jamin said:


> Yes, and and the first one named Кравчук was his son.


O'k. Let it be so like You wrote.


----------



## yael*

Very interesting topic. 
Here are the most frequent Serbian surnames (most of them originate from patronyms):
- Petrović* - son of Petar (Peter)
- Popović* - son of the priest  
- Nikolić - son of Nikola (Nicholas)
- Jovanović - son of Jovan (John)
- Lukić - son of Luka (Luke)
- Gavrilović - son of Gavrilo (Gabriel)
- Filipović - son of Filip (Philip)
- Đorđević - son of Đorđe (George)
- Janković - son of Janko (Ian)
- Marković - son of Marko (Mark)
- Mihajlović - son of Mihajlo (Michael)
- Milošević - son of Miloš
- Pavlović - son of Pavle (Paul)...

*very frequent in Montenegro as well.


----------



## cisarro

Most frequent surnames in Chile (Top 5):

*1-* *González:* 
Originated in Spain meaning _Gonzalo's son_.

*2-* *Muñoz:*
There are a lot of theories about its origin. One of them relates it with the Roman consul Lucio Munio, meaning _Munio's son_. This is my first surname!!!

*3- Rojas:*
There are at lest two theories about its origin. Researches consider it as a Spanish place name. Others sources relate its origin with the first Jews inmigrants (descendants of the Hebrew dinasty called _House of David_) in Spain.

*4- Díaz:*
Diago's son (Diago is a variant of Diego).

*5- Pérez:*
Its origin is, probably, Aragonese or Catalan (Spain) meaning Pere's son (Pere = Pedro = Peter).


----------



## Ben Jamin

And what about Garcia? The most popular name in Spain. How long down the list is it?


----------



## cisarro

According this list from 2008, García is in the 42nd place (0,85%) and the first place is González (4,42%). In 2008 we were around 16.750.000 people.


----------



## Ben Jamin

cisarro said:


> According this list from 2008, García is in the 42nd place (0,85%) and the first place is González (4,42%). In 2008 we were around 16.750.000 people.



According to Wikipedia García is the most frequent name in Spain, with 3,5% of population usin this name. So the Garcias almost did not emigrate to America? Is there any explanation?


----------



## LilianaB

What is the most frequent last name in Poland?


----------



## Ben Jamin

LilianaB said:


> What is the most frequent last name in Poland?



According to Wikipedia:
1          Nowak
2          Kowalski
3          Wiśniewski
4          Wójcik
5          Kowalczyk
6          Kamiński
7          Lewandowski
8          Zieliński
9          Szymański
10        Woźniak


----------



## cisarro

Ben Jamin said:


> According to Wikipedia García is the most frequent name in Spain, with 3,5% of population usin this name. So the Garcias almost did not emigrate to America? Is there any explanation?


García is very extended in America because (I think) was a frequent surname among Spanish conquerors, but its distribution is, probably, very uneven. Consider 142.000 people in Chile (2008), 290.000 people in Argentina (2005), 530.000 people in Colombia (2010), but it's very very very common in Mexico (almost 4 millions in 2005) and Peru (almost 6 millions in 2010). Any explanation for this difference? Mexican and Peruvian regions were important settlements for Spanish colonization of this continent. Also is a very common surname in little countries like Honduras and El Salvador.


----------



## jmx

cisarro said:


> *5- Pérez:*
> Its origin is, probably, Aragonese or Catalan (Spain) meaning Pere's son (Pere = Pedro = Peter).


"Pérez" used to be an _exotic_ surname in either Catalonia or Aragón. It obviously derives from "Pero", a medieval variant of "Pedro".


----------



## Fernando

Agreed. 'Pero' is the medieval (Castilian) variant of 'Pedro', very close to 'Pere' (Catalan).

From Pero has derived Pérez, while the name Pero has became outdated in Spanish, overcame by 'Pedro'.


----------



## merquiades

In Catalan, the last name Pérez is Peris


----------



## 涼宮

Well, I am not from Japan but I will post the most common surnames there according to Wikipedia writing their meanings.

Each kanji represents a concept, so you will see 2 concepts for each surname.

１）佐藤 _Satou_ = assitant wisteria. (this is wisteria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisteria)
２）鈴木 _Suzuki_= buzzer tree.
３）高橋 _takahashi_ = high/expensive bridge
４）田中 _tanaka_ = in the middle of a rice field.
５）渡辺 _watanabe_= transit/deliver environs/boundary
6)伊藤 _itou_= Italy wisteria.
7) 山本 _yamamoto_= mountain origin
8) 中村 _nakamura_= inside of the village
9) 小林 _kobayashi_= little forest
10) 斎藤 _saitou_= purification wisteria
11) 加藤 _katou_= increase/Canada wisteria
12) 吉田 _yoshida_= joy rice field
13) 山田 _yamada_= mountain rice field
14) 佐々木 _sasaki_= assistants tree
15) 山口 _yamaguchi_= mouth of the mountain 
16) 松本 _matsumoto_= pine tree origin
17) 井上 _inoue_= above community
18) 木村 _kimura_= tree town
19) 林 _hayashi_= forest
20) 清水 _shimizu_= pure water
21) 山崎 _yamazaki/yamasaki_= mountain cape
22) 森 _mori_= forest/woods
23) 阿部 / 安倍 _abe_= Africa section/peaceful twice
24) 池田 _ikeda_= pool rice field
25) 橋本 _hashimoto_= bridge origin

Althought most kanjis have more than 1 meaning


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## merquiades

涼宮 It's interesting to note the importance of wisteria in Japanese names.  If the sixth most common name is Italian wisteria and the eleventh Canadian wisteria, it must means the advent of last names is rather recent in Japan?  At least since Japan came into contact with these far away lands.  19th century maybe


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## Frank78

merquiades said:


> At least since Japan came into contact with these far away lands.  19th century maybe



European traders and missionaries were already in Japan in the 16th century.


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## Moro12

windhair said:


> Interesting topic.
> Chinese surname is given in some different way. Principally you can build a surname with any one or two Chinese characters. A few parents begin to build surname with more than two characters now, but this is not recommended, because it will cause some typsetting porblem when fill a formular, which generally have maximum 4 spaces for a full name, (maxinum 2 characters for family name and another 2 for surname).
> 
> Oh, most commen name now in China? lets me think about that:
> Here I give the Chinese Charaters, Chinese phonetic, english meaning and German meaning (for Frank )
> Male:
> 伟 （Wei） - great, magnificent, gross (de)
> 强 （Qiang）- strong, stark (de)
> 军 (Jun) - army, Heer (de)
> 明 （Ming）- light, hell (de)
> 刚 (Gang) - strong, hard, stark(de), hart(de)
> 
> Female:
> 芳 (Fang) - fragrant, duftend(de)
> 红 (Hong) - Red, rot(de)
> 淑 (Shu) - gentle, charming, mild (de), sanftmuetig(de)
> 洁 (jie) - pure, virtuous, sanctity , heilig (de)



Thank you for your input, very interesting!
But what you have actually provided is a list of given names. Given name = 名字.
The topic is related to surnames. Surname = family name = 姓氏.
Surnames are not usually subdivided into male and female.

We would appreaciate it if you also provided us with a list of the most frequent Chinese surnames.
Nobody has done it yet.


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## Ben Jamin

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_surname you can find most popular Chinese names.


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## Ironicus

The most common surname worldwide is said to be Smith in all its forms and translations.
Why this should be so is unsurprising:
- a smith would usually be a prosperous man
- he would have to be strong and healthy
- he would probably be a manly man, well muscled, getting plenty of exercise and fresh air
- hot work at the forge would give him an appetite for more than just water
- any village girl would consider him a good catch
So is it any wonder that the smiths proliferated?
Miller would probably run a not-too-close second; Farmer, Butcher and Baker could be relied on to feed their families. So these names are also prominent among surnames world-wide.


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## LiseR

according to Wikipedia



№Male namesFemale namesFamily names1JānisAnnaBērziņš2AndrisKristīneKalniņš3JurisIneseOzoliņš4EdgarsIngaJansons5MārisIlzeOzols6AivarsLīgaLiepiņš7MārtiņšDaceKrūmiņš8PēterisAnitaBalodis9IvarsMarijaEglītis10ValdisIvetaPētersons


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## Pedro y La Torre

Ironicus said:


> The most common surname worldwide is said to be Smith in all its forms and translations.



It's the most common surname in the United States, and has been since the first census in 1790, I believe, reflecting the English backbone of America (the amount of English Americans is massively undercounted in the census figures, as of 2012 something estimates say that around 80 million Americans are of English descent).
It's also the most common surname in England and Australia; it ranks second in Canada, and fifth in Ireland, showing perhaps the prevalence of English/British colonization throughout the country (not just Ulster).


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## LilianaB

Maybe there were just a lot of smiths in America, to make shoes for the horses.


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## Pedro y La Torre

LilianaB said:


> Maybe there were just a lot of smiths in America, to make shoes for the horses.



Well, perhaps, but if there were lots of Smiths, those smiths were likely of English descent. Given that out of the ten most common surnames in the U.S. today, 8 are of English or wider British origin, I think the backbone point remains valid.


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## Fernando

In Spain, Herrero/Ferrero/Ferrer/Ferreiro (I am including the Latin and Catalan, Galician, etc. variants) are very common surnames, but they are far from being the most common, which are patronimics.


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## LilianaB

I have never known anybody whose name was Smith, in my life. I haven't even met one. This must be luck. 

Added: Sorry, I did not count Patti Smith, the Smiths, and I had a teacher Prof. Smith, a college professor, but I don't remember where he was teaching. He was a literature professor. Also the Smithsonian Institute, if that counts.


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## Beryl from Northallerton

I think the Smithsonian Institute would only count if it answered to either Mr. or Mrs. Smith. [_you can tell I've come late into this discussion_]


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## AutumnOwl

Ironicus said:


> The most common surname worldwide is said to be Smith in all its forms and translations.
> Miller would probably run a not-too-close second; Farmer, Butcher and Baker could be relied on to feed their families. So these names are also prominent among surnames world-wide.


This doesn't hold true for Swedish surnames, there are only 219 persons with the surname Smed (Smith in Swedish), and no Miller, Farmer, Butcher or Baker at all. Swedish surnames are either patronymics or nature names (Ek - Oak, Björk - Birch, Alm - Elm, Lind - Linden, Skog - Forest, Sjö-/-sjö - Lake, Bäck - Stream and so on). There are some "soldier names" such as Hård - Hard, Rask - Ready, Modig - Brave, Stark - Strong, Strid - Fight, Stål - Steel and similar names that were given men serving as soldiers instead of the traditional patronymic names, so that it would be easier to differentiate if there were several men with the same patronymic name.


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## LilianaB

Yes, I agree. I would think the most popular Swedish name would Johanson, especially in  some regions, wouldn't it?


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## AutumnOwl

Yes, Johansson is the most common surname in Sweden, closely followed by Andersson. The first non-patronymic name is Lindberg, on place 17.



2011
 2010
  2011
 2010
 1​ (1)​ Johansson​255 205 (258 785)​ 2​ (2)​ Andersson​254 909 (257 994)​ 3​ (3)​ Karlsson​226 049 (228 794)​ 4​ (4)​ Nilsson​173 483 (175 392)​ 5​ (5)​ Eriksson​148 969 (150 296)​ 6​ (6)​ Larsson​126 061 (127 403)​ 7​ (7)​ Olsson​115 828 (117 401)​ 8​ (8)​ Persson​109 320 (110 618)​ 9​ (9)​ Svensson​103 208 (104 689)​ 10​ (10)​ Gustafsson​98 592 (99 693)​ 11​ (11)​ Pettersson​97 232 (98 475)​ 12​ (12)​ Jonsson​74 630 (75 353)​ 13​ (13)​ Jansson​50 800 (51 412)​ 14​ (14)​ Hansson​44 389 (44 900)​ 15​ (15)​ Bengtsson​34 682 (35 047)​ 16​ (16)​ Jönsson​32 775 (33 225)​ 17​ (17)​ Lindberg​27 542 (27 584)​ 18​ (18)​ Jakobsson​26 896 (27 030)​ 19​ (19)​ Magnusson​26 705 (26 935)​ 20​ (20)​ Olofsson​26 611 (26 820)​ 21​ (21)​ Lindström​25 273 (25 326)​ 22​ (23)​ Lindqvist​23 130 (23 117)​ 23​ (22)​ Lindgren​23 077 (23 147)​ 24​ (24)​ Axelsson​22 897 (23 048)​ 25​ (26)​ Berg​21 544 (21 479)​


You can find the top 100-list here: http://www.scb.se/Pages/TableAndChart____31063.aspx


----------



## Ben Jamin

How common are toponimical surnames in Sweden?


----------



## AutumnOwl

Ben Jamin said:


> How common are toponimical surnames in Sweden?


If you mean surnames after towns/villages/farms, those are not common. I would say that the use is regional, in either Dalarna and surrounding areas or on Gotland. In Dalarna it was/is common to have the name of the family farm first in a person's name, for example _Busk_ Margit Jonsson or _Hjort_ Anders Olsson. On Gotland there are families that have _-arve_ as a part of their surname after the family farm, and there are also some other surnames on Gotland after places.

There are people in Sweden with patronymic surnames who change their surname to something more unusual, but the names have to be approved by Patentverket, and unless there is some kind of family connection to a village or farm it's not certain that a toponomical surname would be approved, especially if there are other families with a similar surname.


----------



## greatbear

Macunaíma said:


> In Brazil the most common surname is _Silva ..._



Also in Sri Lanka.



Ironicus said:


> The most common surname worldwide is said to be Smith in all its forms and translations.



Don't think this applies to a lot of Asia, including India, China and Japan, so don't see how can you say it applies worldwide.


----------



## Ben Jamin

greatbear said:


> Also in Sri Lanka.
> 
> 
> 
> Don't think this applies to a lot of Asia, including India, China and Japan, so don't see how can you say it applies worldwide.



Worldwide doesn't mean here "The most common surname in every country", but "most frequent of all the surnames [meanings] in the world".


----------



## greatbear

Ben Jamin said:


> Worldwide doesn't mean here "The most common surname in every country", but "most frequent of all the surnames [meanings] in the world".



I did understand that, and believe me, it is not a very frequently found meaning of the surnames in the East.


----------



## Alderamin

Fernando said:


> In Spain, Herrero/Ferrero/Ferrer/Ferreiro (I am including the Latin and Catalan, Galician, etc. variants) are very common surnames, but they are far from being the most common, which are patronimics.



It's curious, because the surname Smith or Blacksmith turned into "Ferreira" in Portuguese, ending with an "a".


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## Ben Jamin

greatbear said:


> I did understand that, and believe me, it is not a very frequently found meaning of the surnames in the East.



I think that your answer proves that you did not understand.


----------



## merquiades

Alderamin said:


> It's curious, because the surname Smith or Blacksmith turned into "Ferreira" in Portuguese, ending with an "a".



There's also Herrera in Spanish.

Ferrari in Italian


Actually here's the smith equivalent in all Romance Language.  They are all pretty similar.


----------



## greatbear

Ben Jamin said:


> I think that your answer proves that you did not understand.



Why don't you elaborate more, so I can understand better?


----------



## Ben Jamin

greatbear said:


> Why don't you elaborate more, so I can understand better?



I can try:
If you make a list of all surnames in the world, and find out that the names meaning “smith” top the list, with let’s say 100 million, and the names that mean “gold” come up as number 2 with 90 million (it is only an example, I don’t have the actual numbers), then “smith” is number 1 in the world, or “worldwide”, even if it doesn’t occur at all in half of the world’s countries. 
“Worldwide” means “in the global scale”, and not “evenly distributed in all the countries in the world”. 
PS I chose “gold” because this is the meaning of popular names Kim and Jin in Korean and Chinese respectively


----------



## greatbear

Ben Jamin said:


> I can try:
> If you make a list of all surnames in the world, and find out that the names meaning “smith” top the list, with let’s say 100 million, and the names that mean “gold” come up as number 2 with 90 million (it is only an example, I don’t have the actual numbers), then “smith” is number 1 in the world, or “worldwide”, even if it doesn’t occur at all in half of the world’s countries.
> “Worldwide” means “in the global scale”, and not “evenly distributed in all the countries in the world”.



OK, thanks for the elaboration, but don't you think that since it is Asia which is population-heavy, the argument rather works in the favour of "smith" being _not_ the worldwide no. 1?
If "worldwide" had meant "evenly distributed in all the countries of the world", then "smith" certainly could have claimed the no. 1 spot!


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## Ben Jamin

If you count the actual names (not meaning of the names) then Smith falls to a far place on the list (5 million worldwide), while Chinese Li/Lee takes the lead with 105 million, But we were speaking about names meaning “smith”.
We have neither need nor mandate to redefine the word “worldwide”.


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## greatbear

Ben Jamin said:


> If you count the actual names (not meaning of the names) then Smith falls to a far place on the list (5 million worldwide), while Chinese Li/Lee takes the lead with 105 million, But we were speaking about names meaning “smith”.
> We have neither need nor mandate to redefine the word “worldwide”.



Yes, we are speaking about names meaning "smith", and there aren't many such names frequent in the East: the place where humanity predominantly lives. I am not redefining the word "worldwide", but you seem to dither over its meaning.
The Chinese Li is also prevalent in the form of Lee in Australia/US, Lei and other forms in SE Asia: so maybe surnames meaning "plum" (which Li means, according to Wiki) are the most frequent worldwide?


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## LilianaB

I think the name Smith might be more popular in the countries were people kept horses and had to make shoes for them, and knights wore heavy armor. Smith was a common trade in Medieval Europe, from about what period last names originate.

Is it popular in such countries as Japan -- where famous samurai swords were made? Maybe it is just not customary to create last names from the names of trades in some Asian countries. Last names there may come from nature more, or something else.


----------



## Ben Jamin

greatbear said:


> Yes, we are speaking about names meaning "smith", and there aren't many such names frequent in the East: the place where humanity predominantly lives. I am not redefining the word "worldwide", but you seem to dither over its meaning.
> The Chinese Li is also prevalent in the form of Lee in Australia/US, Lei and other forms in SE Asia: so maybe surnames meaning "plum" (which Li means, according to Wiki) are the most frequent worldwide?



I found name statistics for some countries: in Germany 0,36% of the population has a name meaning “smith”, and in Poland “0,6%” has a name meaning “smith” or “smiths’s son”. It is thus not unreasonable to suppose that (excluding the English Smith, standing at 1,36%) the world’s population has not more 0,6% people with name derived from “smith”. With 7 billion people in the world it makes maximum 37 million. Here we can see that Li (plum) wins over “smith” worldwide (105 0000 0000).


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## LilianaB

Wouldn't the last name Li mean a plum tree rather than the fruit? This is what I was told.


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## Blackman

I think the most frequent surname worldwide has to be looked for in China. Over 270 millions people are gathered in three surnames: _Li, Wang _and_ Zhang _and almost 90% of the population has the same 20 surnames. It's a combination of the most populated country and one with the fewest surnames at the same time. 

This is the Italian top ten: first two have common origin so they can be considered as one. 



Posizione
Cognome
Diffusione
1
ROSSI
45677
2
RUSSO
31372
3
FERRARI
26204
4
ESPOSITO
23230
5
BIANCHI
18794
6
ROMANO
17947
7
COLOMBO
17670
8
RICCI
15045
9
MARINO
13417
10
GRECO
13416


----------



## francisgranada

Ciao Blackman .

Your list is really interesting. 

Rossi and Russo (meaning "red" and not Russian) is, let's say, understandable because most of the mediterranean population is "marron/bruno/moro/moreno/castagno ...", so these terms are not quite distinctive (quasi tutti gli italiani, sardi, spagnoli ... si potrebbero chiamare Moro/Moreno/Bruno ecc ...). 

But, what is surprising to me is the following:

1. Esposito on the 4th place. As far as I know, the name Esposito (Spanish Expósito) was typically given to orphans or abbandoned children whose "original" suname was unknown. So the 4th place seems to be high enough, probably this surname has a different diffusion according to regions.

2. Colombo, Marino and Greco. Personally, I know one Greco in Turin and Col*u*mbo, the famous detective ...


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## Ben Jamin

francisgranada said:


> Ciao Blackman .
> 
> Your list is really interesting.
> 
> Rossi and Russo (meaning "red" and not Russian) is, let's say, understandable because most of the mediterranean population is "marron/bruno/moro/moreno/castagno ...", so these terms are not quite distinctive (quasi tutti gli italiani, sardi, spagnoli ... si potrebbero chiamare Moro/Moreno/Bruno ecc ...).
> 
> But, what is surprising to me is the following:
> 
> 1. Esposito on the 4th place. As far as I know, the name Esposito (Spanish Expósito) was typically given to orphans or abbandoned children whose "original" suname was unknown. So the 4th place seems to be high enough, probably this surname has a different diffusion according to regions.
> 
> 2. Colombo, Marino and Greco. Personally, I know one Greco in Turin and Col*u*mbo, the famous detective ...



If you used percentage of the population you would see that even the most popular surnames don’t attain more than 0,077 % of the Italian population of 60 million. The number of Espositos is then not really surprisingly high, especially if we remember that the people bearing the name are mostly descendants of orphans with unknown name, and not orphans themselves.


----------



## Fernando

merquiades said:


> There's also Herrera in Spanish.
> (...)
> Actually here's the smith equivalent in all Romance Language.  They are all pretty similar.



Agreed. I forgot Herrera. In the Wiki page you give says that come from 'iron mine' or just the femenine of 'herrero'. I would not expect that the number of female smiths had been very high, so I would say that most Herreras/Ferreiras were wives of Herreros/Ferreiros or lived near/owned an iron mine.


----------



## Fernando

Ben Jamin said:


> especially if we remember that the people bearing the name are mostly descendants of orphans with unknown name, and not orphans themselves.



Yes, I assume the original orphans did not want their surname to be lost.


----------



## Alderamin

Fernando said:


> Agreed. I forgot Herrera. In the Wiki page you give says that come from 'iron mine' or just the femenine of 'herrero'. I would not expect that the number of female smiths had been very high, so I would say that most Herreras/Ferreiras were wives of Herreros/Ferreiros or lived near/owned an iron mine.



In the Portuguese example, "Ferreira" isn't only a surname it can be the name of many cities, such as Paços de Ferreira, in Portugal.
It's also the brand name of the wine "Porto Ferreira", built by the family of winemakers from the Douro, in 1751, "_Ferreira_".


----------



## merquiades

Another profession surname that has been productive in many languages is "tailor":
Taylor (English)
Schneider, Snyder (German)
Sastre (Spanish)
Alfaiate (Portuguese)
Szabó (Hungarian)
Krawiec, Kravitz (Polish)


----------



## Alderamin

"Alfaiate" maybe, but I haven't heard it before as a Portuguese family surname.


----------



## merquiades

Fernando said:


> Agreed. I forgot Herrera. In the Wiki page you give says that come from 'iron mine' or just the femenine of 'herrero'. I would not expect that the number of female smiths had been very high, so I would say that most Herreras/Ferreiras were wives of Herreros/Ferreiros or lived near/owned an iron mine.



It seems from these maps that Herrero is rather more popular in Northern Spain especially around Valladolid, and Herrera more in the south, even more so in Granada.


----------



## francisgranada

Hungarian "top 10":

1.Nagy (big)
2.Kovács (smith)
3.Tóth (Slavic; Slovene; Croatian; in the last cca 3 centuries exclusively Slovak)
4.Szabó (tailor)
5.Horváth (Croatian)
6.Varga (shoemaker)
7.Kiss (little)
8.Molnár (miller)
9.Németh (German)
10.Farkas (wolf)

Besides of these, toponymic surnames are very frequent (ending in -i or -y) e.g.: Budai (of/from Buda), Kassai (of/from Kassa), Pozsonyi (from today's Bratislava), Egri (from Eger), Sárközy (ex-president of France) ... as well as patronymic surnames (typical endings -fi/-fy, -si/-sy): Andrássy (son of Andeas), Pálffy (son of Paul), Jánosi (son of John) ...


----------



## LilianaB

Lithuanian names, in my opinion, are totally mixed up. There are very few names of Baltic origin, with Baltic roots. The last names were changed so many times within the history, that right now the situation is really peculiar. In the past many last names were written in the Cyrillic -- the Ruthenian way. Then they were switch to Polish sounding names, with endings such as -_ski_ and -_cki_ added to some family names, or just Polish noble names were adopted. Then some were switched back to Lithuanian and -ius endings added to Slavic last names that already had endings (Slavic forms) especialy such as icz -- Mickievicius, and many others. I am not really sure what the most common last names are right now, but they would often be names changed from something else to which the -_ius, or -is_ endings were added (to the masculine frorm). The feminine forms are different, depending if the woman is married or not. Traditionally Old Baltic names come only, or mostly, from nature.


----------



## Ben Jamin

merquiades said:


> Another profession surname that has been productive in many languages is "tailor":
> Taylor (English)
> Schneider, Snyder (German)
> Sastre (Spanish)
> Alfaiate (Portuguese)
> Szabó (Hungarian)
> Krawiec, Kravitz (Polish)



Kravitz is not Polish, it's German or Yiddish (of Polish or Ukrainian origin)


----------



## Pretty_Gaella

This thread is very interesting
And I would like to share that the most common last name here in my country is *Dela Cruz*. 
It means Literally in Spanish "of the cross" 
Other famous last names are: Sanchez, Martinez, Cruz, Reyes, Perez, Hernandez and Santos.


----------



## Encolpius

francisgranada said:


> ...(I don't know any yellow, green or blue ...)...etc.



I don't know either, but surprisingly, there are some Sárga's [yellow], Kék's [blue] and Zöld's [green]in the Hungarian phone book. 2 Kék's, more Zöld's and Šárga's in the Slovak phone book...interesting..Everything is possible


----------



## Frank78

merquiades said:


> Schneider, Snyder (German)



"Snyder" is not German but seems to be the Anglified version of the German "Schneider" or Dutch "Sneijder"
S + consonant is very rare in unique German words.



Ben Jamin said:


> Kravitz is not Polish, it's German or Yiddish (of Polish or Ukrainian origin)



Not German as well. Should be Yiddish "Lenny Kravitz" is refer to be of Ukranian-Yiddish decent on wikipedia.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Frank78;12812196
Not German as well. Should be Yiddish "Lenny Kravitz" is refer to be of Ukranian-Yiddish decent on wikipedia.[/QUOTE said:
			
		

> you are right of course, a germanized name would be spelled Krawitz, but I made a short cut (phonetically the same).


----------



## francisgranada

Encolpius said:


> I don't know either, but surprisingly, there are some Sárga's [yellow], Kék's [blue] and Zöld's [green]in the Hungarian phone book. 2 Kék's, more Zöld's and Šárga's in the Slovak phone book...interesting...


A propos: I have the impression that the equivalent German names like *Blau*, *Grün*, *Gelb *... are not so rare or "strange", including the regions of the today's Hungary, Slovakia, Bohemia, Romania,  etc ... 

Maybe these surnames are mostly typical for Jewish persons/families, at least in central Europe, but I'd like to hear the opinion of other foreros, too. Are these surnames "typical", or at least quite frequent, e.g. in Germany or Austria or Switzerland?


----------



## Youngfun

LilianaB said:


> Is it popular in such countries as Japan -- where famous samurai swords were made? Maybe it is just not customary to create last names from the names of trades in some Asian countries. Last names there may come from nature more, or something else.


In Japan, only lords and samurai had surnames, while normal population didn't have surnames until 1870, when the government wanted a more "civilized" Japan and ordered everybody to choose a surname. Many people chose surnames related to nature, so those living the montain called themselves "under the mountain", those who had a peach tree in the yard called themselves" peach tree" etc. 
E.g. Toyoda -the old name of Toyota and surname of the founder- means "fertile rice paddy" and Honda means “original rice paddy".



LilianaB said:


> Wouldn't the last name Li mean a plum tree rather than the fruit? This is what I was told.


Li can mean both the tree and the fruit. More specifically, _li zi_ is the fruit, _li shu_ is the tree.



Blackman said:


> It's a combination of the most populated country and one with the fewest surnames at the same time.


This is right, but...


> almost 90% of the population has the same 20 surnames.


This seems exaggerated!  Where did you find this statistic? I knew that 70% of the Chinese has 100 surname.

Because Chinese surnames are so "few" and "repeating", in Milan the 1st surname is Rossi, but the 2nd one is Hu.  See here.
It seems that most Chinese in Milan come from the village of Yuhu, where Hu is the most common surname.


----------



## Fernando

Youngfun said:


> In Japan, only lords and samurai had surnames, while normal population didn't have surnames until 1870, when the government wanted a more "civilized" Japan and ordered everybody to choose a surname. Many people chose surnames related to nature, so those living the montain called themselves "under the mountain", those who had a peach tree in the yard called themselves" peach tree" etc.
> E.g. Toyoda -the old name of Toyota and surname of the founder- means "fertile rice paddy" and Honda means “original rice paddy".



But Honda is a 'samurai' surname.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_clan


----------



## Youngfun

It's pronounced the same but written differently. This samurai Honda is written *本多* while the Honda of cars and motos is *本田*。


----------



## merquiades

Youngfun said:


> This seems exaggerated!  Where did you find this statistic? I knew that 70% of the Chinese has 100 surname.
> 
> Because Chinese surnames are so "few" and "repeating", in Milan the 1st surname is Rossi, but the 2nd one is Hu.  See here.
> It seems that most Chinese in Milan come from the village of Yuhu, where Hu is the most common surname.



It would seem strange that a country with over a billion people have so few first names and last names.  It must be hard to tell who is who....  I have met a lot of Chinese with the name Hong and Meng.  John Smith, Juan García, and probably Gianni Rossi are common but you probably won't come into contact with lots of them.


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## Youngfun

The problem is the limit of one syllable for surnames, although some rare two-syllable-surname also exists, while names can be either of 1 or 2 syllable. Personally I don't really like names with one syllable, I think it's lack of fantasy.
Chinese names aren't few if people use bisyllables one. In theory, the common Chinese characters in use today are 3000, so 3000 x 3000 = 9 million names. (I know, still too few for a billion and half people)
In the West there is the problems that names are translitterated, so there is no way to distinguish different characters with same romanization.
I would advice the registry offices in Western states to register the immigrants' names in their original language too, in order to disambiguish.

In Shanghai, where apartments are skycrapers, there is the problem that in the same buiding there are people with same first name and same last name, so when a letter arrives, the wrong person picks it. Next time, he'd better specify the room no. too...
There was a law proposal to let the Chinese have two surnames, dad's one and mom's one, similar to Spain, so that homonyms would decrease.

And imagine the combination Western name (which are few) + Chinese surname (which are few). On Facebook I've found 4 people with same name as me, and same surname as me. Francesco is only Italian name, and the Chinese in Italy are only 200,000; and those born in Italy with Italian name even fewer.
Luckily I have a middle name to distinguish myself from the other 4 ones.


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## merquiades

Youngfun said:


> The problem is the limit of one syllable for surnames, although some rare two-syllable-surname also exists, while names can be either of 1 or 2 syllable. Personally I don't really like names with one syllable, I think it's lack of fantasy.
> Chinese names aren't few if people use bisyllables one. In theory, the common Chinese characters in use today are 3000, so 3000 x 3000 = 9 million names. (I know, still too few for a billion and half people)
> In the West there is the problems that names are translitterated, so there is no way to distinguish different characters with same romanization.
> I would advice the registry offices in Western states to register the immigrants' names in their original language too, in order to disambiguish.
> 
> In Shanghai, where apartments are skycrapers, there is the problem that in the same buiding there are people with same first name and same last name, so when a letter arrives, the wrong person picks it. Next time, he'd better specify the room no. too...
> There was a law proposal to let the Chinese have two surnames, dad's one and mom's one, similar to Spain, so that homonyms would decrease.
> 
> And imagine the combination Western name (which are few) + Chinese surname (which are few). On Facebook I've found 4 people with same name as me, and same surname as me. Francesco is only Italian name, and the Chinese in Italy are only 200,000; and those born in Italy with Italian name even fewer.
> Luckily I have a middle name to distinguish myself from the other 4 ones.



Believe me, I know the problems that frequent names can have.  My last name is in the top 10 in Great Britain and the top 25 in the US.  Everyone in the world knows it cause many famous people have had it.  My first name is also common and has gotten even more common over the years.  Together there is an American football player with my name, a psychology professor somewhere, an investment banker... etc. etc.  Once I was sued for not paying a big credit card bill because they mistook me for someone else who they thought was me. My middle name is less common but still it is not a shocker to hear it.  I almost had a heart attack when I saw that so many people on facebook had my full name.  At least my name is rare in France.
 I wish I could adopt my mother's maiden name since it is so rare everywhere that no one knows how to pronounce it, not even my mother's family.  My cousin who works in an international company was contacted twice by someone in Australia and another in Italy with the same e-mail. "Oh my God.  You have my last name.  No one has it.  How did you get it?  From where? How do you pronounce it" etc.  I hope for the chinese that that law passes...



> And imagine the combination Western name (which are few) + Chinese surname (which are few). On Facebook I've found 4 people with same name as me, and same surname as me. Francesco is only Italian name, and the Chinese in Italy are only 200,000; and those born in Italy with Italian name even fewer.
> Luckily I have a middle name to distinguish myself from the other 4 ones.



I didn't know there were so many chinese in Italy!  200,000.  I never thought it was such an attraction for them there, the cultures being so different.


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## Fernando

Youngfun said:


> It's pronounced the same but written differently. This samurai Honda is written *本多* while the Honda of cars and motos is *本田*。


I see. Thank you. Is not there any confussion in common life?


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## Frank78

francisgranada said:


> A propos: I have the impression that the equivalent German names like *Blau*, *Grün*, *Gelb *... are not so rare or "strange", including the regions of the today's Hungary, Slovakia, Bohemia, Romania,  etc ...
> 
> Maybe these surnames are mostly typical for Jewish persons/families, at least in central Europe, but I'd like to hear the opinion of other foreros, too. Are these surnames "typical", or at least quite frequent, e.g. in Germany or Austria or Switzerland?



Blau and Gelb are almost non-existing in Germany. Grün is a little more common.

Here you can type in names and it checks how many phonebook entries there are: http://www.verwandt.de/karten/absolut/gr%C3%BCn.html


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## Youngfun

merquiades said:


> Once I was sued for not paying a big credit card bill because they mistook me for someone else who they thought was me. My middle name is less common but still it is not a shocker to hear it.  I almost had a heart attack when I saw that so many people on facebook had my full name.


I hope your credit company found out eventually that you were the wrong person. Don't they check other information, such as date of birth, residence address, etc.?
I think in Italy the codice fiscale would be probably required for these kinds of thing.
Then I guess I'm luckier than you.  At least nobody has the same full name as me, middle name included.
At least the combination Italian first name + Chinese last name is "safe"... better than English first name + Chinese last name...
My cousin named her daughter with an English name: Evelyn. Bad choice... she's gonna have a lot of homonyms among Chinese Americans, Chinese British, Chinese Australians, Hong Konger, Malaysian Chinese, Singaporean Chinese, etc. 
It's also a recent trend in Italy that people are starting giving English names to babies instead of the traditional Italian names.



merquiades said:


> My cousin who works in an international company was contacted twice by someone in Australia and another in Italy with the same e-mail. "Oh my God.  You have my last name.  No one has it.  How did you get it?  From where? How do you pronounce it" etc.


I have a Brazilian friend of Italian ancestry, her last name is not very common in Italy, she got an email from an Argentinian guy with the same last name. Then they discovered they were relatives.

Some years ago, there was a man in Florence who murdered a lot of people, and was called "The monster of Florence". A man was wrongly accused of being the killer.
Then an Italian American watched the news ans saw this person with the same last name as him, and decided to contact him, eventually finding out that they were cousins.
After that man was declared innocent he went to America to meet the cousin, and stayed in good relationship with him from then. 
Being wrongly accused of murder let him find his cousin. 



merquiades said:


> I didn't know there were so many chinese in Italy!  200,000.  I never thought it was such an attraction for them there, the cultures being so different.


Historically the first Chinese to settle in Italy were those who built the trenches in France during WWI. Some remained in France, some went down to Italy.
Different cultures, but similar economic activity: both Italy and China are good clothes and leathers manifacturers. Many Chinese went to Italy to do these kinds of jobs, and till now some still do these jobs. Then all these people brought family, relatives and friends with them too, and by word of mouth more people arrived.
In the city of Prato 1/5 of the population is Chinese. (My dream is Chinese to become the 2nd official language of the city )



Fernando said:


> I see. Thank you. Is not there any confussion in common life?


Yes. The same thing happens in Chinese. When we have to write down somebody's name we must ask which characters. For example 张 and 章 both are pronounced zhang1. We refer to the first as 弓长张 (the Zhang formed by merging the 2 characters 弓 + 长 = 张), to the second we may say 文章的章 (Zhang as in wenzhang - text) or 章鱼的章 (Zhang as in zhangyu - octopus).
Basically either how the character is formed (when the character can be "split" in two simpler ones), or say a compound word that contains that character. 
When neither of the 2 ways can be used, we can probably try to explain the meaning of the character...


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## LilianaB

Taking about names -- once they put Li Lian Li and my last name on my jury duty form. It is true -- I swear. Could this be a legitimate name in Chinese, and what would it mean?


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## Youngfun

Yes, it is a legitimate name. It seems the transliteration of the name 'Lilian'! - if following the Western order Li Lian = first name, and Li = last name.
It's impossible to know the meaning from the transliteration, I would need the hanzi, but it does sound as a very gracious and feminine name, I would guess 丽莲 = beautiful lotus flower.

Otherwise following the Chinese order, Li = family name, and Li Lian = first name. Still a possible Chinese name.


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## LilianaB

No, it was in English -- after all the court in New York does not always use the hanzi. I just don't know if it was a joke, or  what they were thinking. It must have been a computer generated error, or something with data entry.


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## Youngfun

It stil can't compete with my early Italian ID card, where it was written "Cittadinanza: CUBANA"


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## Encolpius

*Slovenia*

01.    Novak, 11307 (0,574 %)
02.    Horvat, 10017 (0,514 %)
03.    Krajnc, 5708 (0,293 %)
04.    Kovačič, 5639 (0,286 %)
05.    Zupančič, 5103 (0,260 %)
06.    Kovač, 4800 (0,242 %)
07.    Potočnik, 4738 (0,239 %)
08.    Mlakar, 4000 (0,207 %)
09.    Vidmar, 3938 (0,201 %)
10.    Kos, 3914 (0,198 %)
11.    Golob, 3883
12.    Turk, 3526
13.    Božič, 3511
14.    Kralj, 3403
15.    Zupan, 3336
16.    Korošec, 3296
17.    Bizjak, 3265
18.    Hribar, 3148
19.    Kotnik, 3078
20.    Rozman, 2987
21.    Kavčič, 2956
22.    Petek, 2900
23.    Kastelic, 2861
24.    Kolar, 2848
25.    Hočevar, 2822


----------



## atcheque

Bonjour,

In France : source


1MARTINfirst name2BERNARDfirst name3THOMASfirst name4PETITsmall5ROBERTfirst name6RICHARDfirst name7DURANDto last or tough or stubborn
8DUBOISfrom the wood9MOREAUbrown skin (from Moor)10LAURENTfirst name


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