Sunday 12 February 2017

Popularity of Surnames Globally

Sons carry the family name through generation after generation. Daughters, if they marry a man, take on their husbands' surname. With this principle, I can say that the growth of a surname in popularity depends on how many males are born into the family. Those with the most males in the family will have a more common surname and those that do not have many males in the family will not grow as quickly.

I wondered this process of inheriting surnames happened all over the globe and if the surnames were in any way related. This is what I found:

Country:
Most Common Surname:
Argentina
Fernandez
Barbados
Alleyne
China
Lǐ ()
Croatia
Horvat
Denmark
Jensen
Equatorial Guinea
Nquema
Finland
Virtanen
India
Devi
Ireland
Murphy
Madagascar
Rakotomalala
Russia
Ivanova
Tanzania
Juma


Also during my investigation, I discovered that some countries have completely different systems than the one I’m used to. For example in Egypt, the typical name is {your name} {your father’s name} {your father’s father’s name}. In this scenario, my name would be Henry Peter Colin and my mother’s name would be Mary Ciarán (Kieran) Pádraig (Patrick). In some Indonesian countries, people tend not to have any form of surname at all. 


Thursday 9 February 2017

Origins, Meanings and More Behind Surnames

From all around the world, there are many surnames which derive from past and modern occupations. In the UK and Europe, this process took place during the middle ages. Some obvious examples are Baker, Tailor and Shepherd. Some not so obvious examples are Brewster (female brewer), Arkwright (chest maker) and Bailey (bailiff). Throughout Europe, people took on their occupation as a surname just as in the UK, such as Boucher (French for butcher), Fischer (German for fisherman) and Guerrero (Spanish for warrior).

As there are countless examples of occupational surnames, there are just as many surnames named after geographical locations. Again there are some quite noticeable ones such as Hill, Woods and Brooke. Some people are even named after towns, e.g. Dover and Benton. In the UK, valleys were once frequently referred to as “bottoms”. Although it might seem otherwise, names such as Longbottom come from this. Holt originally meant a little forest and Wade is a synonym for ford.

There are also a group of surnames that once possibly was given to the family. These names tend to be complimentary, I don’t suppose they would stick really otherwise. Examples of these appreciative names are Trueman, Wise and Tait (joyous). However, there are some surnames which I suspect a few people wouldn’t approve of, such as Wilde, Bull and Unwin (unfriendly).


The diversity of surnames can be found all over the globe and it’s very interesting to see that these types of surnames exist all over the world. Nowadays, I don’t think that people take much notice (if any at all) into their heritage, but even from looking up stuff about your surname and its origin and the gigantic family tree, one can discover a lot about their ancestry. 

http://bit.ly/2ltGuLu

The Popularity of Names Over Time

As I noticed that my grandparents and all of their friends’ names are quite different to my and my siblings’ names, I thought it would be interesting to look into the most popular names over time. To find out whether or not this change just happens in the society that I live or if it happens in various other countries, I thought I’d investigate and this is what I found:


France 1910 (f)
France 2010 (f)
France 1910 (m)
France 2010 (m)
1
Marie
Emma
Jean
Nathan
2
Jeanne
Léa
André
Lucas
3
Marguerite
Chloé
Louis
Enzo
4
Madeleine
Manon
Pierre
Léo
5
Germaine
Inès
Marcel
Louis
6
Yvonne
Lola
Henri
Hugo
7
Suzanne
Jade
René
Gabriel
8
Louise
Camille
Joseph
Ethan
9
Marcelle
Sarah
Georges
Mathis
10
Lucienne
Louise
Maurice
Jules


Spain 1910 (f)
Spain 2010 (f)
Spain 1910 (m)
Spain 2010 (m)
1
María
Sofía
Juan
Santiago
2
Carmen
Valentina
Antonio
Sebastián
3
Josefa
Isabella
Manuel
Matías
4
Dolores
Camila
Francisco
Nicolás
5
Francisca
Valeria
José
Samuel
6
Antonia
Mariana
Pedro
Alejandro
7
María-Carmen
Gabriela
Miguel
Mateo
8
Isabel
Sara
Luis
Diego
9
Pilar
Daniela
Ramón
Benjamín
10
Concepción
María-José
Ángel
Daniel


USA 1910 (f)
USA 2010 (f)
USA 1910 (m)
USA 2010 (m)
1
Mary
Sophia
John
Aiden
2
Helen
Isabella
James
Jacob
3
Margaret
Olivia
William
Jackson
4
Dorothy
Emma
Robert
Ethan
5
Ruth
Chloe
George
Jayden
6
Anna
Ava
Joseph
Noah
7
Elizabeth
Lily
Charles
Logan
8
Mildred
Madison
Frank
Caden
9
Marie
Addison
Edward
Lucas
10
Alice
Abigail
Henry
Liam

At first, I saw that the name “Mary” and its variations were the most popular female names of those born in 1910 from these countries. I believe that this was because of the influence of Christianity in these countries. When I made this observation, I compared it to the males’ names. The equivalents of “John” in these countries seemed to also be very popular. This intrigued me because I found that the most popular names were Christian, I guess this proves how important people felt that their religious beliefs were.
However, if we compare 1910 to 2010, we see that the most popular names in each of the different countries are not variations of each other. By this, I mean they’re not Michel (FR), Miguel (SP) and Michael (US). Instead, they are diverse and there isn’t any visible connection or link. The only reason that I can think of to explain this result is that people are perhaps not as traditional as they used to be and have learnt to be more accepting of change.