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Family names can be unique or come in large numbers. In different countries some names are more common than others. This is a listing of common surnames(alphabetical by country names):

Belgium

(on 1 January 2002)

Peeters 33,273
Janssens 31,529
Maes 25,654
Jacobs 20,229
Mertens 18,927
Willems 18,604
Claes 16,822
Goossens 16,202
Wouters 15,950
De Smet 14,491

The ten most common names in Belgium, shown above, are all of Flemish origin. The ten most common names in the Walloon region are:

Dubois 9.804
Lambert 9.099
Martin 7.266
Dupont 6.688
Dumont 6.614
Leclercq 6.431
Simon 6.285
Laurent 5.965
Lejeune 5.595
Renard 5.581

Most of Brazilian surnames derive from Portuguese surnames. The Portuguese started colonizing Brazil in the 16th century and brought with them many Black African slaves who were forced to work in Sugarcane plantations and other intensive labor activities. Since these slaves were considered property of their masters, they usually adopted their master’s surname, as well as their offspring. When someone's surname was unknown, not verifiable or considered unpronounceable in Portuguese language, their surname was usually registered as "da Costa" when living near the sea coast or "da Silva" (from the forest) if lived inland. The surname "dos Santos" (from the saints) was given to orphan children. This explains why these names (da Costa, da Silva, dos Santos) are so common and why, although the high degree of miscegenation between Portuguese, African and local Indigenous people, Portuguese names are so common. Other common surnames of Portuguese origin, such as Pires, Rodrigues, Lopes, Mendes, Fernandes - notice that they end with -es, not -ez as in Spanish, are also still very common both in Portugal and Brazil. Also many "New Christians" (converted Jews) who adopted names after trees (Pereira, Oliveira), geographic sites (Ribeiro, Matos), or animals (Coelho, Peixe), came from Portugal to Brazil to escape the Inquisition period in Europe - note that these names are not Jewish in origin and are not a sign of Jewish ancestry per se. A new wave of European immigration came to Brazil in the late 19th and 20th centuries, mainly during and after the 1st and 2nd World War, and was primarily composed by Portuguese, Italian, German and Polish searching for better living conditions in the “New World”, as well as Europeans of Jewish origin who were escaping Nazi persecutions. The myth that middle and upper classes in Brazil generally have non-Portuguese family names, especially Italian, German and Jewish from more recent immigrations is totally false and easily verifiable when analyzing the surnames of several Brazilian presidents. These types of misstatements are a consequence of an uncomfortable past related to issues such as Portuguese colonization and slavery, and are created to give the false idea of the small influence of Portugal in the actual culture of Brazil.

Bulgaria

Иванов (Ivanov)
Петров (Petrov)
Георгиев (Georgiev)
Димитров (Dimitrov)
Стоянов (Stoyanov)
Андреев (Andreev)
Михайлов (Mihaylov)
Николов (Nikolov)
Василев (Vassilev)
Тодоров (Todorov)

Canada

Quebec

The 50 most popular surnames in Quebec

Tremblay (1.13%)
Gagnon (0.82%)
Roy (0.77%)
Côté (0.74%)
Bouchard (0.56%)
Gauthier (0.55%)
Morin (0.51%)
Lavoie (0.49%)
Fortin (0.47%)
Gagné (0.47%)
Pelletier (0.45%)
Bélanger (0.44%)
Bergeron (0.41%)
Lévesque (0.41%)
Simard (0.38%)
Girard (0.37%)
Leblanc (0.37%)
Boucher (0.35%)
Ouellet (0.34%)
Caron (0.32%)
Beaulieu (0.31%)
Poirier (0.31%)
Dubé (0.31%)
Cloutier (0.31%)
Fournier (0.30%)
Lapointe (0.30%)
Lefebvre (0.29%)
Poulin (0.28%)
Nadeau (0.28%)
Martin (0.27%)
St-Pierre (0.27%)
Martel (0.26%)
Grenier (0.26%)
Landry (0.26%)
Lessard (0.26%)
Leclerc (0.25%)
Bédard (0.25%)
Bernier (0.24%)
Couture (0.24%)
Richard (0.23%)
Michaud (0.23%)
Desjardins (0.23%)
Hébert (0.22%)
Blais (0.22%)
Turcotte (0.22%)
Savard (0.22%)
Lachance (0.22%)
Parent (0.22%)
Demers (0.21%)
Gosselin (0.21%)

Percentage of total population: 17.82%

Sources: Institut de la statistique du Québec, Quelques Statistiques sur les Noms de Famille and Les 6 000 premiers noms de famille par ordre alphabétique, Québec

China

Main articles: Chinese family name, List of common Chinese surnames

(based on statistics published in 姓氏人名用字分析統計 Beijing, PRC, 1990)

Chinese family names come in large numbers. In the 1990 study, the top 200 family names accounted for over 96% of the random sample of 174,900 persons, over 500 other names accounted for the remainder. The sample was taken from 1982 census data.

(王) Wáng
(陳) Chén
(李) Lǐ
(張) Zhāng
(劉) Liú
(楊) Yáng
(黃) Huáng
(吳) Wú
(林) Lín
(周) Zhōu
(葉) Yè
(趙) Zhào
(呂) Lǚ
(徐) Xú
(孫) Sūn
(朱) Zhū
(高) Gāo
(馬) Mǎ
(梁) Liáng
(郭) Guō

In a different study (1987) which combined data from mainland China and Taiwan (sample size of 570,000 persons), the outcome was a bit different. The number one Chinese family name was (李) Lǐ at 7.9% of the sample, followed by (王) Wáng at 7.4% and (張) Zhāng at 7.1%; the study showed that the top 19 names covered 55.6% and the top 100 names covered 87% of the sample. Chinese family names distributed differently according to regions. The north was dominated by (李) Lǐ, (王) Wáng, (張) Zhāng, and (劉) Liú; the south was dominated by (陳) Chén, (趙) Zhào, (黃) Huáng, (林) Lín, and (吳) Wú. There were over 450 family names in Beijing, but there were fewer than 300 family names in Guangdong and Fujian. Apparently the distribution of the statistics was significantly affected by the bias from the Taiwanese data.

Croatia

Czech Republic

Novák (70 504)
Svoboda (52 088)
Novotný (49 962)
Dvořák (46 099)
Černý (36 743)
Procházka (33 274)
Kučera (31 286)
Veselý (26 481)
Horák (25 174)
Němec (22 795)
Marek (22 548)
Pokorný (22 203)
Pospíšil (22 189)
Hájek (21 276)
Jelínek (20 733)
Král (20 510)
Růžička (19846)
Beneš (19 600)
Fiala (19 121)
Sedláček (18 484)

Feminized names included (m. Novák - f. Nováková).
Source: Ministry of Interior (as of 2002).

Denmark

Most popular Danish family names (as of 2004) [1]

Jensen 303089
Nielsen 296850
Hansen 248968
Pedersen 186913
Andersen 172894
Christensen 133033
Larsen 129662
Sørensen 124175
Rasmussen 104130
Jørgensen 98354
Petersen 92189
Madsen 70176
Kristensen 65074
Olsen 54044
Thomsen 40514
Christiansen 40224
Poulsen 34203
Johansen 33120
Knudsen 31977
Mortensen 31252

The most popular Danish family names all end with "sen", meaning "son". That means, that for example "Jensen" is "son of Jens", "Poulsen" is "son of Poul". An example: if Hans Petersen's father was Peter Sørensen, Hans' father's name was Peter, and his grandfather's Søren. His son would then be (first name) Hansen. This method of naming children was widely used up to the middle of the 19th century. Sometimes it was also common to give to girls names such as "Jensdatter" or "Poulsdatter", meaning daughter of Jens, or daughter of Poul. These names are now seldom seen in Denmark, but still widely known and used in Iceland (where the ending is -dottir).

Nowadays, the "sen" names have lost their meanings, because women bear them too. It is not common anymore that Hans Petersen's son would be called Hansen, but more likely Petersen, although the old method is still used.

Estonia

Tamm (oak)
Mägi (hill)

Finland

Source: Population Register Centre, 20 June 2005. Percentages are based on the population of Finland on 21 June 2005.

Virtanen - 24,204 (0.461%)
Korhonen - 23,721 (0.452%)
Nieminen - 21,841 (0.416%)
Mäkinen - 21,699 (0.414%)
Mäkelä - 19,674 (0.375%)
Hämäläinen - 19,518 (0.372%)
Laine - 18,908 (0.360%)
Koskinen - 18,058 (0.344%)
Heikkinen - 17,939 (0.342%)
Järvinen - 17,381 (0.331%)

France

Source: [2]

Germany

data from 1995

Müller (0.95%)
Schmidt (0.69%)
Schneider (0.40%)
Fischer (0.35%)
Meyer (0.33%)
Weber (0.30%)
Schulz (0.27%)
Wagner (0.27%)
Becker (0.27%)
Hoffmann (0.26%)
Huber (0.18%)

Hungary

Nagy (244663; big, cf.Gross)
Kovács (228274; smith, cf.Schmidt)
Tóth (223291; Slovak/Slav)
Szabó (217066; tailor, cf.Schneider)
Horváth (Horvát) (201524; Croatian)
Kiss (Kis) (139919; small, cf.Klein)
Varga (137398; shoemaker, cf.Schumacher)
Molnár (112878; miller, cf.Müller)
Németh (Német) (97715; German, cf.Deutsch)
Farkas (83755; <first name, meaning "wolf">, cf.Wolf)
Balogh (79653; left-handed, unskillful)
Papp (56235; priest)
Takács (55180; weaver, cloth-maker, cf.Weber)
Juhász (54267; shepherd, cf.Schäfer)
Mészáros (42738; butcher, cf.Fleischer)
Lakatos (41005; locksmith)
Simon (39881; <first name>)
Oláh (37147; Romanian)
Fekete (34755; black, cf.Schwarz)
Rácz (34518; Serbian)
Szilágyi (32628; from Szilágy county)
Fehér (27262; white, cf.Weiss)
Gál (Gaál) (26557; <first name>)
Balázs (26158; <first name>)

In Hungary, the surname is placed first (see Eastern order).

India

Main article: Indian family name

Ireland

top 20.

Names starting with O' are patronymic.

Israel

Cohen (כהן)
Levi (לוי)

The name Cohen belongs to the members of the ancient family of priests (Kohanim, descendants of Aaron). The name Levi belongs to the members of the family of Levites, descendants of Levi.

Italy

Japan

Main article: Japanese name

(佐藤) Satō
(鈴木) Suzuki
(高橋) Takahashi
(田中) Tanaka
(渡辺) Watanabe
(伊藤) Itō
(山本) Yamamoto
(中村) Nakamura
(小林) Kobayashi
(斎藤) Saitō
(加藤) Katō
(吉田) Yoshida
(山田) Yamada
(佐々木) Sasaki
(山口) Yamaguchi
(松本) Matsumoto
(井上) Inoue
(木村) Kimura
(林) Hayashi
(清水) Shimizu
(青木)Aoki

Korea

Main article: List of Korean family names

김 (金; Kim, Gim)
이 (李; Lee, Yi, I)
박 (朴; Park, Pak, Bak)
최 (崔; Choi, Choe)
정 (鄭; Jung, Chung, Jeong)
강 (姜; Gang, Kang)
조 (趙; Cho, Jo)
윤 (尹; Yoon, Yun)
장 (張; Jang, Chang)
임 (林; Lim, Im)
한 (韓; Han)
신 (申; Shin, Sin)
서 (徐; Suh, Seo)
권 (權; Kwon, Gwon)
손 (孫; Son)
황 (黃; Whang, Hwang)
송 (宋; Song)
안 (安; Ahn, An)
유 (柳; Yoo, Yu)
홍 (洪; Hong)

Korean surnames have a variety of ways of being romanized.

Latvia

Bērziņš (Berzins)
Kalniņš (Kalnins)
Ozoliņš (Ozolins)

Literally translated - the diminutive forms of birch, hill and oak.

Mexico

Martinez Gonzalez Rodriguez Cruz

Nuevo León

Martínez (8.50%)
Rodríguez (8.14%)
García (7.14%)
González (7.09%)
Hernández (7.06%)

Source: GARCÍA, Miriam Para regios...los Martínez Periódico El Norte 18 de marzo de 2003.

The Netherlands

from the 1947 census

De Jong 55,256
De Vries 49,298
Jansen 49,213
Van den Berg 37,678 (including Van der Berg and Van de Berg)
Bakker 37,483
Van Dijk 36,578
Visser 34,721
Janssen 32,824
Smit 29,783
Meijer, Meyer 28,256

Source: Meertens Instituut

Norway

Hansen (1.31%)
Olsen (1.21%)
Johansen (1.21%)
Larsen (0.90%)
Andersen (0.88%)
Nilsen (0.83%)
Pedersen (0.82%)
Kristiansen (0.55%)
Jensen (0.54%)
Karlsen (0.50%)
Johnsen (0.48%)
Pettersen (0.47%)
Eriksen (0.44%)
Berg (0.41%)
Haugen (0.32%)
Hagen (0.32%)
Johannessen (0.31%)
Andreassen (0.28%)
Jacobsen (0.27%)
Halvorsen (0.27%)

Names ending in sen are originally patronymic.
Source: Statistics Norway

Philippines

Cruz
De la Cruz
De los Santos
De los Reyes
Garcia
Gonzales
Lim
Martinez
Mendoza
Mercado
Santos
Reyes
Tan

Poland

Portugal

For an exaustive listing of Portuguese family names see this genealogical site

Romania

Popa (191,938 persons; Slavic, "pop" - "priest")
Popescu (147,784 persons; "Son of the Priest", Slavic root "pop" - "priest")
Radu (Slavic, "rad" - "happy")
Ionescu ("Son of John")
Şerban
Matei ("Matthew")
Stoica
Gheorghe ("George")
Constantin ("Constantine")
Stan ("Stan")
Dumitrescu ("Son of Demetrius")
Mihai ("Michael")
Ioniţă ("Little John")
Dumitru ("Demetrius")
Dinu ("Constantine")
Tudor ("Theodor")
Dobre (Slavic root "dobro" - "good")
Barbu ("Bearded one")
Ştefan ("Stephan")
Florea ("Flower")
Ene (variation of "Ion" - John)
Vasile ("Basil")
Marin ("Marinus")
Ghiţă ("Little George")
Georgescu ("Son of George")

Russia

Per Boris Unbegaun of the Oxford University:

Иванов (Ivanov)
Васильев (Vasilyev)
Петров (Petrov)
Смирнов (Smirnov)
Михайлов (Mikhailov)
Федоров (Fyodorov)
Соколов (Sokolov)
Яковлев (Yakovlev)
Попов (Popov)
Андреев (Andreyev)

Serbia and Montenegro

Petrović (Петровић)
Jovanović (Јовановић)
Marković (Марковић)
Popović (Поповић)
Nikolić (Николић)
Vuković (Вуковић)
Živković (Живковић)
Đorđević (Ђорђевић)
Lukić (Лукић)
Marić (Марић)
Janković (Јанковић)
Milovanović (Миловановић)
Ilić (Илић)
Obradović (Обрадовић)
Aleksić (Алексић)
Gavrilović (Гавриловић)
Davidović (Давидовић)
Đurović (Ђуровић)
Stevanović (Стевановић)
Stefanović (Стефановић)
Radović (Радовић)
Stojanović (Стојановић)

Spain

Source: [3] - Data from December 1999.

García - 1,378,000 people (3.48%)
Fernández - 851,000 (2.15%)
González - 839,000 (2.12%)
Rodríguez - 804,000 (2.03%)
López - 796,000 (2.01%)
Martínez - 788,000 (1.97%)
Sánchez - 725,000 (1.83%)
Pérez - 709,000 (1.79%)
Martín - 459,000 (1.16%)
Gómez - 440,000 (1.11%)
Ruiz - 321,000 (0.81%)
Hernández - 305,000 (0.77%)
Jiménez - 293,000 (0.74%)
Díez - 293,000 (0.74%)
Álvarez - 273,000 (0.69%)
Moreno - 261,000 (0.66%)
Muñoz - 241,000 (0.61%)
Alonso - 206,000 (0.52%)
Gutiérrez - 170,000 (0.43%)
Romero - 170,000 (0.43%)
Navarro - 158,400 (0.40%)
Torres - 134,600 (0.34%)
Domínguez - 134,600 (0.34%)
Gil - 134,600 (0.34%)
Vázquez - 130,000 (0.33%)
Serrano - 122,700 (0.31%)
Ramos - 118,000 (0.30%)
Blanco - 118,000 (0.30%)
Sanz - 106,900 (0.27%)
Castro - 102,900 (0.26%)
Suárez - 102,900 (0.26%)
Ortega - 99,000 (0.25%)
Rubio - 99,000 (0.25%)
Molina - 99,000 (0.25%)
Delgado - 95,000 (0.24%)
Ramírez - 95,000 (0.24%)
Morales - 95,000 (0.24%)
Ortiz - 87,120 (0.22%)
Marín - 83,160 (0.21%)
Iglesias - 83,160 (0.21%)

Family names ending in -ez are typically patronymic

Singapore

Popular Chinese surnames - based on a paper published by Statistics Singapore, 2000

Tan 陈 (陳)
Lim 林
Lee 李
Ng 黃
Ong 王
Wong 王
Goh 吳
Chua 蔡
Chan 陈 (陳)
Koh 许 (許)
Teo 张 (張)
Ang 洪
Yeo 杨 (楊)
Tay 郑 (鄭)
Ho 何
Low 刘 (劉)
Toh 桌
Sim 沈
Chong 张 (張)
Chia 谢(謝)

Slovenia

official statistics

Sri Lanka

Sweden

official statistics

Johansson (3.3%)
Andersson (3.2%)
Karlsson (2.5%)
Nilsson (2.2%)
Eriksson (1.7%)
Larsson (1.6%)
Olsson (1.4%)
Persson (1.4%)
Svensson (1.3%)
Gustafsson (0.90%)
Pettersson (0.83%)
Jonsson (0.72%)
Jansson (0.63%)
Hansson (0.54%)
Bengtsson (0.42%)
Jönsson (0.42%)
Petersson (0.37%)
Carlsson (0.34%)
Gustavsson (0.32%)
Magnusson (0.32%)
Lindberg (0.31%)
Olofsson (0.30%)

The most common names in Sweden are originally patronymic, which means that the son of e.g. Karl received the surname Karlsson (Karl's son). The daughter received the name Karlsdotter (Karl's daughter). Since the 19th century these names are inherited exactly as in e.g. USA or the United Kingdom and women also receive "son-names". Compare this with the "mac-names" in Scotland. Even though these "son-names" are the most common names in Sweden, a majority of the Swedes have other family names consisting of two random items from nature, for example Lindberg (linden/lime mountain), Bergkvist (mountain twig), Alström/Ahlström (alder stream). Other names like Sjöman (Seaman) and Nyman (Newman) contains professions and adjectives. Because of the greater diversity of these names each specific name is less common than most "son-names". Given the large quantity of citizens of foreign heritage it is a matter of time before their surnames will be present high up in the official statistics, especially when grouped together instead of listed as separate surnames because of slightly different spelling or omitted umlauts etc. Persons with ancestors of noble origin in Sweden often, but not always, have surnames referring to their coat of arms or non-Swedish names.

United Kingdom

The following list is for England, Wales, and the Isle of Man, and is based on a survey of the National Health Service Central Register[4]: Note that the Scotland and Northern Ireland population are not included in this data.

Smith (1.15%)
Jones (0.94%)
Williams (0.66%)
Taylor (0.53%)
Brown (0.51%)
Davies (0.48%)
Evans (0.39%)
Wilson (0.35%)
Thomas (0.35%)
Johnson (0.34%)
Roberts (0.33%)
Robinson (0.29%)
Spiers (0.28%)
Thompson (0.28%)
Wright (0.28%)
Walker (0.27%)
White (0.27%)
Edwards (0.27%)
Hughes (0.26%)
Green (0.25%)
Hall (0.25%)

United States

see Census data

(Numbers in parentheses are percentage of population with that name.)

Smith (1.006%)
Johnson (0.810%)
Williams (0.699%)
Jones (0.621%)
Brown (0.621%)
Davis (0.580%)
Miller (0.424%)
Wilson (0.339%)
Moore (0.312%)
Taylor (0.311%)
Anderson (0.311%)
Thomas (0.311%)
Jackson (0.310%)
White (0.279%)
Harris (0.275%)
Martin (0.273%)
Thompson (0.269%)
Garcia (0.254%)
Martinez (0.234%)
Robinson (0.233%)

The distribution of family names in the U.S. reflects the history of immigration into the country. Many immigrants from non English speaking countries adopted English family names. Good examples of this is the popular Swedish name Johansson which was frequently changed to Johnson, and the German Müller changed to Miller. Some very common Swedish names were so similar that only a minor change of spelling was necessary, such as Andersson and Jonsson. This is why these names are much more common in the U.S. than in the United Kingdom.

@@ Line 71: / Line 71: @@
 *[[Gomes]]
 *[[Henriques]]
+*[[Jayne]] or Jaime
 *[[Lima]]
 *[[Lins]]

Revision as of 17:05, 5 January 2006

Croatia

The Netherlands

Portugal

See also