Popular surnames all over the world

We are used to the fact that every person has a last name. And are there exceptions? Are there many names in the world? When and where did the first one appear? Which of them are the most popular in the whole world and in individual countries? If you are interested in the answers to these questions, read about everything in order in the article.

Legacy from ancestors is different

Now it is impossible to imagine a person without a surname. Nevertheless, there are such people. For example, in Iceland people only manage their personal name and patronymic (patronymic). And in the beginning of XX century. In this country even a law was issued prohibiting the native Icelanders from having a surname. Since then, it is only available to foreigners or having foreign roots. In addition, there are no last names among the inhabitants of the underdeveloped states of Africa and Asia, nicknames are used for distinguishing them. In the rest of the world, people have long been accustomed to using generic names and do not represent their lives without them. Over time, the most common and popular names were singled out. And some, on the contrary, became rare and outlandish.

Originally from antiquity

The origin of this particular generic name refers to the times of Ancient Rome. The Latin word familia means "family" or "gender". In Russia such self-names appeared in the XIV century. And gradually replaced personal nicknames. In any country the first names were given to noble persons, and then the tradition passed to other estates, gradually reaching the lowest.

Reflecting the characteristics of a particular language and culture, there are many different names in the world. It is difficult to calculate how many of them there are in the world, but one can single out the most popular surnames. If you look at this rating, you get the impression: the shorter, the more popular. The top four lines occupy Asian generic names, because often popular surnames were formed from hieroglyphs.

First five of the most-most

The first place is Lee (Lee, Li, Ly). According to unofficial statistics, it is worn by more than 100 million people in the world. Most of them live in China, Vietnam and Korea, but there are many Europeans and Americans among them, who inherited this generic name from an ancestor.

In second place in the ranking "Most popular last names" - Chang (Chang, Zhang). This Chinese name appeared more than 4 thousand years ago, and for this time has become one of the most common in Asia and around the world. She has options for Zhang and Chen.

The third place is Wang (or Wong, Wang is written in Latin). Like many popular names, it originated in China. There is nothing surprising, if you recall that about one and a half billion people of our planet by nationality are Chinese. And since there are only 450 Chinese surnames, it becomes clear why some of them are so often repeated.

The fourth place is the Vietnamese surname Nguyen (Nguyen). It is so often found that 40% of its citizens wear it in Vietnam itself. This is difficult to imagine in a European country.

The second five of the most-most

The next three lines of the rating were taken by Spanish and Portuguese popular names.

Fifth place - Garcia. This Spanish surname is heard by many. It is extremely popular in Spain itself, as well as in the countries of South America, Cuba and the Philippines.

Sixth place - Gonzales (or Gonzalez). A very common surname in the Spanish-speaking world.

The seventh place is Hernandez. Formed in the XV century, this generic name is now worn by residents of Spain, Chile, Mexico, the United States and some other countries.

The last three popular names in the worldwide top ten come from English, Russian and German.

Eighth place is Smith. This is the most common name in England, Australia and the United States. Translated into Russian, it means "smith".

Many popular English surnames are associated with the names of professions. For example: Potter (potter), Miller (miller), Baker (Baker), Cook ("cook"), Ward ("guard"), Butler ("butler"), etc. The names of the colors were no less often the source from which such popular English names as Brown ("brown"), White ("white"), Green ("green", Gray ("gray"), Black ("black") and t E.

Ninth place - Smirnov. There are several versions of the origin of this family name. According to one of them, it comes from the word "quiet", and on the other - from the Old Russian greeting: "With the new world!". Just like the English, popular surnames in Russia are often formed from the names of the first professions: Kuznetsov, Melnikov, Goncharov, Popov, Stolyarov.

The tenth place in the world rating is Muller. This is also a "professional" generic name: in German it means "miller". This name is common in all the countries speaking in this language: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg.

Studying names is an exciting activity and also one of the ways to immerse yourself in the language and culture of a particular country.