List of most popular family names

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):

Bulgaria

• Ivanov
• Petrov
• Georgiev
• Dimitrov

China Main article: Chinese family name

(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.

1. (王) Wang2 (#1)
2. (陈) Chen2
3. (李) Li3
4. (张) Zhang1
5. (刘) Liu2
6. (杨) Yang2
7. (黄) Huang2
8. (吴) Wu2
9. (林) Lin2
10. (周) Zhou1
11. (叶) Ye4
12. (赵) Zhao4
13. (吕) Lu3
14. (徐) Xu2
15. (孙) Sun1
16. (朱) Zhu[?]1
17. (高) Gao1
18. (马) Ma3
19. (梁) Liang2
20. (郭) Guo1

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) Li3 at 7.9% of the sample, followed by (王) Wang2 at 7.4% and (张) Zhang1 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) Li3, (王) Wang2, (张) Zhang1, and (刘) Liu2; the south was dominated by (陈) Chen2, (赵) Zhao4, (黄) Huang2, (林) Lin2, and (吴) Wu2. 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.

Estonia

• Tamm
• Mägi

France

• Martin
• Bernard
• Dupont

Germany

data from 1995

1. Müller (9,5%)
2. Schmidt (6,9%)
3. Schneider (4,0%)
4. Fischer (3,5%)
5. Meyer (3,3%)
6. Weber (3,0%)
7. Schulz (2,7%)
8. Wagner (2,7%)
9. Becker (2,7%)
10. Hoffmann (2,6%)

(Data according to Kunze (1999): dtv-Atlas Namenkunde. München: dtv, S. 198)

Great Britain

• Smith
• Jones
• Williams

India

1. Patel

Ireland

top 20, see: [1] (http://www.cproots.com/surnameorigins/namesystems/namsysir6.htm)

1. Murphy (#1)
2. Kelly
3. O'Sullivan
4. Walsh
5. Smith
6. O'Brien
7. Byrne
8. Ryan
9. O'Connor
10. O'Neill
11. O'Reilly
12. Doyle
13. McCarthy
14. Gallagher
15. O'Doherty
16. Kennedy
17. Lynch
18. Murray
19. Quinn
20. Moore

Israel

1. Cohen (כהן)
2. Levi (לוי)

Japan

1. (佐藤) Sato
2. (鈴木) Suzuki
3. (高橋) Takahashi
4. (田中) Tanaka
5. (渡辺) Watanabe
6. (伊藤) Ito
7. (山本) Yamamoto
8. (中村) Nakamura
9. (小林) Kobayashi
10. (斎藤) Saito
11. (加藤) Kato
12. (吉田) Yoshida
13. (山田) Yamada
14. (佐々木) Sasaki
15. (山口) Yamaguchi
16. (松本) Matsumoto
17. (井上) Inoue
18. (木村) Kimura
19. (林) Hayashi
20. (清水) Simizu

Korea Main article: Korean family name

• Gim or Kim (김; 金)
• Yi or Lee or Rhee (이; 李)
• Pak or Park (박; 朴)

The Netherlands

• Jansen, Jansens, Janssen, Janssens
• De Vries
• Smit
• De Boer

Norway

1. Hansen (1.31%)
2. Olsen (1.21%)
3. Johansen (1.21%)
4. Larsen (0.90%)
5. Andersen (0.88%)
6. Nilsen (0.83%)
7. Pedersen (0.82%)
8. Kristiansen (0.55%)
9. Jensen (0.54%)
10. Karlsen (0.50%)
11. Johnsen (0.48%)
12. Pettersen (0.47%)
13. Eriksen (0.44%)
14. Berg (0.41%)
15. Haugen (0.32%)
16. Hagen (0.32%)
17. Johannessen (0.31%)
18. Andreassen (0.28%)
19. Jacobsen (0.27%)
20. Halvorsen (0.27%)

Poland

1. Nowak (203 506)
2. Kowalski (139 719)
3. Wiśniewski (109 855)
4. Wójcik (99 509)
5. Kowalczyk (97 796)
6. Kamiński (94 499)
7. Lewandowski (92 449)
8. Zieliński (91 043)
9. Szymański (89 091)
10. Woźniak (88 039)
11. Dąbrowski (86 132)
12. Kozłowski (75 962)
13. Jankowski (68 514)
14. Mazur (66 773)
15. Wojciechowski (66 361)
16. Kwiatkowski (66 017)
17. Krawczyk (64 048)
18. Kaczmarek (61 816)
19. Piotrowski (61 380)
20. Grabowski (58 393)

Source: Zawadzki J.M, 2002, 1000 Najpopularniejszych nazwisk w Polsce [1000 of the most popular names in Poland], Warsaw: Świat Książki

Russia

• Tscherkasov
• Ivanov
• Vasiliev
• Deternov

Sweden

official statistics (http://www.scb.se/statistik/be0101/be0101namntab15.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 Great Britain 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). Noble persons in Sweden often, but not always, have surnames refering to their coat of arms or non-swedish names.

United States

see Census data (http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names/dist.all.last)

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

1. Smith (1.006%, #1)
2. Johnson (0.810%)
3. Williams (0.699%)
4. Jones (0.621%)
5. Brown (0.621%)
6. Davis (0.480%)
7. Miller (0.424%)
8. Wilson (0.339%)
9. Moore (0.312%)
10. Taylor (0.311%)
11. Anderson (0.311%)
12. Thomas (0.311%)
13. Jackson (0.310%)
14. White (0.279%)
15. Harris (0.275%)
16. Martin (0.273%)
17. Thompson (0.269%)
18. Garcia (0.254%)
19. Martinez (0.234%)
20. 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 Johanson which was frequently changed to Johnson, and the German Müller changed to Miller. This is why these names are much more common in the U.S. than in Great Britain.

Vietnam

• Nguyen