Years ago when a friend found out I was half Okinawan he started calling me “Higa”, one of the the most common Okinawan names. He was a funeral director and when he saw me passing by the door of the chapel (I worked at a mortuary), he called out “HIGA!”. Since the deceased was Okinawan, he said half the congregation turned around in acknowledgement! :rolleyes:
I worked with a guy who’s last name was Patel (a common name in India) and when I told him that a joke I heard Jeremy Clarkson told on Top Gear the night before “That’s like calling out Patel in an Indian airport”, he didn’t seem amused.
I know Lee is common in the West as well as in Korean and China. And Chan, Chun and Wong/Wang are common in China. Yes, I know they’re pronounced differently in different countries and provinces, but they’re romanized the same (and pronounced incorrectly in the West).
I think that guy was just uptight, my best buddy freshman year was a Patel he was like “There’s a billion of us - we’re all peasants.” My sister dated a Shah at one point - I think that was a big deal.
Singh and Kaur are very common names in India. All Sikh men have the last name Singh and all Sikh women have the last name Kaur. As I understand it, it’s intended to express the sense of equality among the members of the religion.
I’ve heard that the name Kowalski means blacksmith, and it’s certainly a very common Polish name.
What I don’t understand, is WHY “Smith” became so common - because being a smith is a highly skilled trade! Surely there were WAY more farmers, soldiers, even other trades like weavers and woodworkers, than smiths. Being a smith presumably meant you had to spend a lot of money on all the shit you need to do the smithing, all the anvils and hammers and metal and other tools, plus they needed a building to be their shop, and they needed the long and arduous apprenticeship training to learn how to do the job. And somehow this became an ubiquitous name. I don’t understand it at all, actually, now that I’m thinking about it (and this is the first time I’ve ever really thought about it.)
Yep. The noun form (also a last name) is “kowal.” You’ll find a few variations: Kowal, Kowalski, Kowalczyk. Kowalski is the second most common Polish surname. Kowalczyk is the fifth most common Polish surname. (The most common is “Nowak,” but if you add the Kowalskis and Kowalczyks together, those outnumber the Nowaks.)
That may be exactly why it survives as a surname - the relative social status, I mean. Being a smith is more of an accomplishment than being a serf, after all.
Even more specifically, the name is associated with the state of Gujarat in India. It’s not totally concentrated there, but about 3/4 of Patels are Gujarati.
Keeping in mind that we were probably 7 or 8 years old when I was told this, but a friend of mine has the last name Nygren and mentioned that it’s as common in Sweden as Smith is here.
Personally, I’ve never heard the name other than their family, but Milwaukee isn’t really known for their extensive Swiss population.
Well, here’s the top 100 Swedish surnames. Nygren isn’t on that list. Most of the top names are patronymics, with the most popular name being “Johansson,” or “son of Johan/John.”
ETA: And wait. Swedish or Swiss? You say Sweden first, but on re-read, I see you have Swiss at the end.
When we adopted our Shih tzu, we weren’t sure about a name. We love The Penguins of Madagascar (the cartoons are a scream, the movies, eh,) in any event, one of the Penguins is named Kowalski. My husband suggested it, we loved it, and now we have a 16 pound Shih tzu named Kowalski. In any event, we came to find out Kowalski is Smith in Polish and my daughter cracks up because she cannot believe we all agreed to name one of the dogs Smith.
Smith is also Herrera in Spanish, Ferrero in Italian, Smits in Dutch, Lefebvre in French, Kovacs in Hungarian, Schmidt in German, Haddad in Arabic, Gowan in Celtics languages, Sedaris in Greek, etc. I feel left out. I married into a family whose surname only meant farmer.
That’s Nguyen. Ho Chi Minh was one. He was born Nguyen Sinh Cung (family name the first element in Vietnamese). The name Ho Chi Minh was just the last of more than 20 aliases he used during his life.
I’m not sure what’s the exact count now, since the page INE kept on those stats is currently down, but a few years back the most common firstname for Spanish males was José Luis. The second IIRC most common lastname was Rodríguez. Now y’all know why we referred to our president at the time as Zapatero, his second lastname.
Those stereotypical Spanish lastnames which end in -ez are the most common ones; they’re patronymic, for example Rodriguez is child-of-Rodrigo. García doesn’t end in -ez but it’s also a patronymic, and IIRC it’s the most common lastname if you add up first and second positions. There’s enough Garcías in Spain alone (plus a ton more overseas) to form a middle-sized EU country.
The most common surname in Spain is García. It is followed by González, Rodríguez, López, Martínez, Sánchez and Pérez. In #10 position is Martín (will become semi-relevant in a moment).
Interestingly enough, “García” was originally a given name. With time it has become a surname, and nowadays it is only a surname.
Surnames #2 to #9 in the ranking all have the suffix “-ez”. This indicates “son of”. Thus, “González” means “son of Gonzalo” (in English, it would be something like “Guntherson” or “Gunderson”); “Rodríguez” would be “Rogerson”, and so on.
“Martínez” would be “Martinson” or something similar. It is interesting that “Martín” is also a surname (in place #10 among the most usual) and is still in use as a first name (which is what it originally was, like García).
Originally, in Iberia the usual way of making names was by means of “Name + Patronymic” (like in Iceland nowadays); probably this was due to Wisigothic influence post-collapse of the Western Roman Empire; there was a lineage of early medieval kings that went like this: King Sancho Garcés -> King García Sánchez -> King Sancho Garcés -> King García Sánchez.
Cohen and Levi, the two ancient religious castes, are naturally the two most common Jewish names in Israel, with 1 in 25 people having one of them as their last name. It helps that virtually every Jewish community has them - you won’t find many Friedmans in North Africa or many Azulais in Poland, but Cohen and Levi are the same everywhere.
Thailand has no common surnames. Most Thais didn’t have surnames until the 20th century and then, unlike England where every town might have a White and a Wilson, the surnames were required to be unique — Thai surnames are often multi-syllable inventions with minimal etymology.
IIUC, proper Thai forenames have an odd property: none have tone marks! I think this is related to the fact that (just as Christians generally take forenames from the Bible) proper Thai forenames derive from ancient Hindu or Buddhist texts. (This does NOT apply to nicknames.)
Top 10 surnames of babies whose births were registered in Ireland last year: Murphy, Kelly, O’Brien, Byrne, Ryan, O’Sullivan, Walsh, O’Connor, McCarthy, Doyle.
