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):

Belgium

(on January 1, 2002)

  1. Peeters 33,273
  2. Janssens 31,529
  3. Maes 25,654
  4. Jacobs 20,229
  5. Mertens 18,927
  6. Willems 18,604
  7. Claes 16,822
  8. Goossens 16,202
  9. Wouters 15,950
 10. De Smet 14,491

These are all names of Flemish origin; the most popular French name is
Dubois (about 11,000).

Bulgaria

   * Ivanov
   * Petrov
   * Georgiev
   * Dimitrov

China

Main article: Chinese family name

     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. Wang2
  2. Chen2
  3. Li3
  4. Zhang1
  5. Liu2
  6. Yang2
  7. Huang2
  8. Wu2
  9. Lin2
 10. Zhou1
 11. Ye4
 12. Zhao4
 13. Lu3
 14. Xu2
 15. Sun1
 16. Zhu1
 17. Gao1
 18. Ma3
 19. Liang2
 20. 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 Li3 at 7.9% of
     the sample, followed by Wang2 at 7.4% and 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 Li3, Wang2,
     Zhang1, and Liu2; the south was dominated by Chen2,
     Zhao4, Huang2, Lin2, and 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
   * MŠgi

France

   * Martin
   * Bernard
   * Dupont

Germany

     data from 1995

  1. MŸller (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%)

United Kingdom

The following list is for England, Wales, and the Isle of Man, and is based
on a survey of the National Health Service Central Register:

  1. Smith (1.15%)
  2. Jones (0.94%)
  3. Williams (0.66%)
  4. Taylor (0.53%)
  5. Brown (0.51%)
  6. Davies (0.48%)
  7. Evans (0.39%)
  8. Wilson (0.35%)
  9. Thomas (0.35%)
 10. Johnson (0.34%)
 11. Roberts (0.33%)
 12. Robinson (0.29%)
 13. Thompson (0.28%)
 14. Wright (0.28%)
 15. Walker (0.27%)
 16. White (0.27%)
 17. Edwards (0.27%)
 18. Hughes (0.26%)
 19. Green (0.25%)
 20. Hall (0.25%)

India

  1. Singh
  2. Kumar
  3. Sharma
  4. Patel
  5. Shah
  6. Lal
  7. Gupta
  8. Bhat
  9. Rao
 10. Reddy
 11. Jain
 12. Sastri
 13. Iyer

Ireland

  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

Places starting with O' were to start with patronymic.

Israel

  1. Cohen
  2. Levi

Japan

  1. Sato
  2. Suzuki
  3. Takahashi
  4. Tanaka
  5. Watanabe
  6. Ito
  7. Yamamoto
  8. Nakamura
  9. Kobayashi
 10. Saito
 11. Kato
 12. Yoshida
 13. Yamada
 14. Sasaki
 15. Yamaguchi
 16. Matsumoto
 17. Inoue
 18. Kimura
 19. Hayashi
 20. Simizu

Korea

  1. (Kim, Gim)
  2. (Lee, Yi, I)
  3. (Park, Pak, Bak)
  4. (Choi, Choe)
  5. (Jung, Chung, Jeong)
  6. (Gang, Kang)
  7. (Cho, Jo)
  8. (Yoon, Yun)
  9. (Jang, Chang)
 10. (Lim, Im)
 11. (Han)
 12. (Shin, Sin)
 13. (Suh, Seo)
 14. (Kwon, Gwon)
 15. (Son)
 16. (Whang, Hwang)
 17. (Song)
 18. (Ahn, An)
 19. (Yoo, Yu)
 20. (Hong)

Korean surnames have a variety in how they are Romanized.

The Netherlands

  1. De Jong 55,256
  2. De Vries 49,298
  3. Jansen 49,213
  4. Van den Berg 37,678 (including Van der Berg and Van de Berg)
  5. Bakker 37,483
  6. Van Dijk 36,578
  7. Visser 34,721
  8. Janssen 32,824
  9. Smit 29,783
 10. Meijer, Meyer 28,256

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. Wi?niewski (109 855)
  4. W—jcik (99 509)
  5. Kowalczyk (97 796)
  6. Kami?ski (94 499)
  7. Lewandowski (92 449)
  8. Zieli?ski (91 043)
  9. Szyma?ski (89 091)
 10. Wo?niak (88 039)
 11. D?browski (86 132)
 12. Koz?owski (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)

Quebec, Canada

  1. Tremblay (1.13%)
  2. Gagnon (0.82%)
  3. Roy (0.77%)
  4. C™tŽ (0.74%)
  5. Bouchard (0.56%)
  6. Gauthier (0.55%)
  7. Morin (0.51%)
  8. Lavoie (0.49%)
  9. Fortin (0.47%)
 10. GagnŽ (0.47%)
 11. Pelletier (0.45%)
 12. BŽlanger (0.44%)
 13. Bergeron (0.41%)
 14. LŽvesque (0.41%)
 15. Simard (0.38%)
 16. Girard (0.37%)
 17. Leblanc (0.37%)
 18. Boucher (0.35%)
 19. Ouellet (0.34%)
 20. Caron (0.32%)
 21. Beaulieu (0.31%)
 22. Poirier (0.31%)
 23. DubŽ (0.31%)
 24. Cloutier (0.31%)
 25. Fournier (0.30%)
 26. Lapointe (0.30%)
 27. Lefebvre (0.29%)
 28. Poulin (0.28%)
 29. Nadeau (0.28%)
 30. Martin (0.27%)
 31. St-Pierre (0.27%)
 32. Martel (0.26%)
 33. Grenier (0.26%)
 34. Landry (0.26%)
 35. Lessard (0.26%)
 36. Leclerc (0.25%)
 37. BŽdard (0.25%)
 38. Bernier (0.24%)
 39. Couture (0.24%)
 40. Richard (0.23%)
 41. Michaud (0.23%)
 42. Desjardins (0.23%)
 43. HŽbert (0.22%)
 44. Blais (0.22%)
 45. Turcotte (0.22%)
 46. Savard (0.22%)
 47. Lachance (0.22%)
 48. Parent (0.22%)
 49. Demers (0.21%)
 50. Gosselin (0.21%)

Percentage of total population: 17.82%

Romania

   * Ionescu, Ion
   * Popescu, Pop
   * Georgescu, Gheorghe
   * Constantinescu, Constantin
   * Petrescu, Petre, Petreanu

Russia

   * Ivanov
   * Vasiliev
   * Deternov

Sweden

   * 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%)
   * Jšnsson (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), Sjšman (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

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

  1. Smith (1.006%)
  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 Muller changed to Miller. This is why these names are
     much more common in the U.S. than in Great Britain.

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