List of most common surnames

Family names can be unique or come in large numbers. In different countries some names are the most popular. Here is the listing (alphabetical by country names):

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

These are all names of Flemish origin; the most popular French name is Dubois (about 11,000).

Most of Brazilian surnames derive from Portuguese surnames. The Portuguese started colonizing Brazil in the 16th Century and brought with them many African slaves who were forced to work in sugar cane 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 offsprings. 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. A new wave of European immigration came to Brazil in the late 19th and 20th century, 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

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 less than 300 family names in Guangdong and Fujian. Apparently the distribution of the statistics was significantly affected by the bias from the Taiwanese data.

Czech Republic

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

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

Denmark

Most popular Danish family names (as of 2004) [1] (http://www.dst.dk/Statistik/Navne/pop/2004.aspx)

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.

Egypt

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] (http://genealogy.about.com/cs/surname/a/french_surnames.htm)

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%)

Data according to Kunze (1999): dtv-Atlas Namenkunde. München: dtv, S. 198. Most of these names formerly were names of different crafts, e.g. Müller is linked to working a mill.

Hungary

Official data of the Central Personal Data Processing Office at Hungary's Ministry of Interior in 1998 [3] (http://www.registrationshu.org/fuzet/csalad.htm) via [4] (http://www.bogardi.com/gen/g022.htm). Beside the names, the number of their owners and their meaning is given. (Note that Hungarian surnames often show archaic spelling and occasionally employ obsolete words, so even native speakers are not always aware of their actual meanings.)

Nagy (244663; big)
Kovács (228274; smith)
Tóth (223291; Slovak)
Szabó (217066; tailor)
Horváth (Horvát) (201524; Croatian)
Kiss (Kis) (139919; small)
Varga (137398; shoemaker)
Molnár (112878; miller)
Németh (Német) (97715; German)
Farkas (83755; <first name, meaning "wolf">)
Balogh (79653; left-handed, unskillful)
Papp (56235; priest)
Takács (55180; weaver, cloth-maker)
Juhász (54267; shepherd)
Mészáros (42738; butcher)
Lakatos (41005; locksmith)
Simon (39881; <first name>)
Oláh (37147; Romanian)
Fekete (34755; black)
Rácz (34518; Serbian)
Szilágyi (32628; from Szilágy county)
Török (27888; Turkish)
Fehér (27262; white)
Gál (Gaál) (26557; <first name>)
Balázs (26158; <first name>)

In Hungary, the surname is placed first (see Eastern order); for example, Károly Eszter.

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.

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

Korea

Main article: Korean name#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.

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 (http://www.ssb.no/emner/00/navn/etter100.html)

Nuevo León, (Mexico)

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

Source: GARCÍA, Miriam Para regios...los Martínez (http://www.elnorte.com/monterrey/articulo/309799/) Periódico El Norte (http://www.elnorte.com) 18 de marzo de 2003.

Philippines

Cruz
Dela Cruz
Delos Santos
Delos Reyes
Garcia
Gonzales
Lim
Martinez
Mendoza
Mercado
Santos
Reyes
Tan

Poland

Quebec, Canada

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 (http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/default_an.htm) and Les 6 000 premiers noms de famille par ordre alphabétique, Québec (http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/donstat/societe/demographie/struc_poplt/noms6000ab.htm)

Romania

Russia

Source 1000 surnames of Krasnoyarsk (http://region.krasu.ru/geography/demography/family/1000.php)

Иванов (Ivanov)
Кузнецов (Kuznetsov)
Попов (Popov)
Петров (Petrov)
Васильев (Vasilyev)
Смирнов (Smirnov)
Козлов (Kozlov)
Михайлов (Mihajlov)
Семенов (Semenov)
Степанов (Stepanov)

Serbia and Montenegro

Petrović (Петровић)
Jovanović (Јовановић)
Marković (Марковић)
Popović (Поповић)
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: [5] (http://www.ociototal.com/recopila2/r_aficiones/apellidos.html) - 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 (http://www.singstat.gov.sg/papers/snippets/surnames.html) 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 蔡

Sri Lanka

Sweden

official statistics (http://www.scb.se/templates/tableOrChart____31063.asp)

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 such as Lindberg (linden/lime mountain), Sjöman (Seaman) and Nyman (Newman), but because of the greater diversity of these names each specific name is less common than most "son-names". Noble persons in Sweden often, but not always, have surnames referring to their coat of arms or non-Swedish names.

Turkey

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[6] (http://freespace.virgin.net/philip.dance1/offstats/names1-500.htm):

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%)
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 (http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names/dist.all.last)

(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 are 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.

Vietnam

Nguyễn (Nguyen) (~40%)

List of most common surnames

The Netherlands

Nuevo León, (Mexico)

Quebec, Canada

See also

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