Oh yeah, my mom’s maiden name is
English, in the 400s.
Wife’s name is pure Bohunk, not on the list but something similar is at 57,000 and change.
Growing up in Chicago, it was very common to have friends and neighbors with a wide variety of ethnic names (tho primarily European). My sister married a guy from downstate, and they all express amazement at the person and place names we toss out. Theirs seem to be far more Anglo-based.
German, but spelling was changed when one ancestor came over to the US.
Somewhere between 5 and 7 with our surname. Everyone in this country with our last name is directly related.
Not on any of the lists. The frequency map shows some people with our last name in Alabama in 1880 and Michigan in 1920, but no colors show up for the 1990 iteration.
From what I understand, the originator of our surname came over from Germany, changed his name, was kind of a ne’er-do-well and had 2 or 3 separate families over his lifetime (lots of death in childbirth and such). Apparently, he tried and failed at a lot of different businesses. My grandfather was born in CA and most of the other people with our last name (direct relatives) also lived in the area at the time. My dad has since found a few in that area, some in Texas, and a few people in Oregon with our last name, all of whom are directly related (and a couple of whom are descended from a notorious cousin of my grandfather’s). I would guess that fewer than 100 people in the US have our last name (and probably fewer than 50 - my grandfather was the only male child; he had one boy (my dad) (and 4 daughters); my dad had 3 daughters (me and my sisters). Unless we keep our name and give it to our children, our branch of the name dies with us.
Sicilian
My grandfather emigrated from Sicily
It doesn’t.
Obviously, my surname is from the paternal side of my family. Maternally, my mother’s maiden name is very, very common, but it’s national, ethnic origin in no way reflects their national or ethnic religion. Not all of my mother’s ancestors came here willingly, and we’ve no idea of where they were originally from. Others predate the European conquest of the New World - we believe these to be Cherokee, but it may have been a tribe absorbed by the Cherokees at some point.
My surname was misspelled by some immigration official. The name I should have is Lithuanian. The name I do have is German.
I am the fourth generation in the States.
My actual name is somewhere in the 2500’s. The name we originally claimed wasn’t on the list.
Welsh, and extremely common in Wales also
About 15 generations I believe, a long time anyway
Top 5
Armed with that information, almost anyone can guess my surname is Jones.
But what I find incredible is how many of you say your surname isn’t on the list! I was reading the list and the name Frankenberry is on there! Frankenberry! Some goof who changed his name to the name of a crappy kid’s cereal is more common than your surname? That amazes me.
Beautiful!
Has to be several generations, as no self-respecting Sicilian would ever put the Italian first. It’s been well over three decades, but I still clearly remember the first time my grandmother got truly angry with me. I had committed the crime…nay, the grave sin, of referring to my heritage as Italian. She let me know, in no uncertain terms, and using my middle name (a sure sign she was very, very serious) that we were not Italian, we were Sicilian, and that I should never, ever, refer to me or my family as Italian.
And I haven’t. Many conversations go, after hearing my name, “Oh, you’re Italian.”
“No, I’m half-Sicilian.”
“Isn’t Sicily a part of Italy?”
“Not if you ask a Sicilian.”
Hard to say. It is one of those constructed names. It got Anglicized when my great grandfather came. It is from Polish Russia (at the time) but the revised name is Anglo-Saxon.
My great-grandfather made the trip - in the late 1880’s.
Between 250 and 300. I’m a bit surprised it is that high.
There are three guesses: Either it’s a common Scottish name spelled slightly differently, or a bastardized Choctaw Native American name, or a mispelled German name missing the -er ending. Other than that, we got nothing.
Personal ancestors? Two generations.
3)In the 5900s.
Before my grandmothers passing just this last January, there were five generations in my maternal line. Grandmother, Mother, me & my sisters, their sons, and my oldest sisters 12 year old granddaughter. Birthdate ranges from 1912 to 1994
My surname is fairly common in each of England, Scotland, France and Germany – in each cuntry spelled in the same way. I think the ancestors with my name came from Scotland, but it is ossible they came from England.
In my family, I am the first generation and will be the last generation to live in this country. But I came here from Australia about six years ago, and I am going to return to Australia in about five years. (And that’s where most of my children currently live). In Australia, I’m in at least the fourth generation of te family with this name, and I haven’t been able to trace any further. (Did I say that it’s a common name?)
In that one, in the top 25, along with a variant in another language. (Did I say that it’s very common in at last 4 countries?)
Quite impressive. If we move the oldest birthdate back to 1901 and keep the others in relation to that, that would allow the 1994 date to drop back to 1983 which would permit a 17-year-old to produce the sixth generation within the 100-year period.
I wonder if there have been cases where every mother in a line had her first child at age 15 or younger. If so, that could make the oldest one 90 years old when her great-great-great-great-granddaughter produced the eight generation that century. For example, birthdates in 1901, 1916, 1931, 1946, 1961, 1976, 1991, with 5 years to spare.
Since boys could sire children at an even earlier age, there could be another generation’s worth of all-male lineage within a 100-year span.
Anything wrong with these numbers?
Mine is directly from England, but a family researcher said that it’s an Anglicized spelling of a French town whence their ancestors had originated.
I don’t know how long the name has been in the US, but my great-grandfather was (Cornwall) England born, coming to the US sometime after the Civil War. I don’t know how many generations that is, since my grandfather was the youngest of his generation, and my father was the youngest of his. That makes only four from my GGF to me (and I have no progeny). In another of his lines, there are probably seven or eight generations going back.
Top 1400.
(Unrelated, in 1968 or so, a great-grandmother of mine was alive to see her great-great-great granddaughter’s birth. Six generations alive at one time!
1: My surname first appeared in its present form in Germany, though there’s a similar Hungarian name, and my ancestors might be an offshoot of the Hungarian line.
2: If I’m remembering my father’s geneology work correctly, I’m the seventh generation with my surname in the USA, though there were other lines that may have come over earlier.
3: My name is in the vicinity of 50,000 on that frequency table you linked. So, not too common in the US.
And you didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you about my mother’s maiden name, too.
I: My mother’s maiden name is from Ireland.
II: Most of my Irish ancestors came over during the Potato Famine, so probably around 6-7 generations. But there have probably been others in the country for as long as there’s been significant migration here, it being a not-uncommon name.
III: My mother’s maiden name is in the top 1500 names in the US.
Could you tell us more about that list? The last column is clearly meant to be rank, since it starts with Smith, Johnson, and Williams at #1, #2, and #3. But down in the vicinity of my last name, it appears to be in alphabetical order. The first numerical column looks like it might be the percentage of people who have that name, and the second column would be cumulative percentage. It looks like the entire list was originally in alphabetical order, but it was then sorted by the limited-precision percentage, so common names would be in the correct order, but anything below 0.0005% would show up as 0.0000%, and hence be pure alphabetical. The last column would then have been added after the sorting. This means that for uncommon names, you can’t actually tell what rank it has, beyond saying that it’s not in the top 18,839.
Your interpretation matches mine and I don’t have any better explanation than yours. I haven’t tried to find a Census Bureau explanation, either. After some point, though, the “Rank” means nothing.
My maiden name is at the absolute top of the list. I have no idea how many generations have been here since it’s so common. I tried to trace my lineage once, but both my paternal grandfather and his father had the first name John.
My married name is between 1000 and 1500 on the list. My husband’s surname is the result of shortening a distinct Jewish surname, and it was shortened upon my husband’s grandparents’ emigration at Ellis Island.
Fun fact: They came from Russia and Hungary, but they communicated in Yiddish most of the time. My husband has told me that he remembers his grandparents and his parents speaking Yiddish to each other to keep the kids from knowing what they were talking about. 