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):

Contents

1 Argentina 2 Belgium 3 Brazil 4 Bulgaria 5 China 6 Czech Republic 7 Denmark 8 Estonia 9 Finland 10 France 11 Germany 12 Hungary 13 India 14 Ireland 15 Israel 16 Japan 17 Korea 18 Latvia 19 The Netherlands 20 Norway 21 Nuevo León, (Mexico) 22 Poland 23 Quebec, Canada 24 Romania 25 Russia 26 Serbia and Montenegro 27 Spain 28 Sweden 29 United Kingdom 30 United States 31 Vietnam 32 See also

Argentina

• González
• Rodríguez
• López
• García
• Gómez

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).

Brazil

• da Silva
• da Costa
• dos Santos
• Souza
• Oliveira
• Cavalcante or Cavalcanti
• Carvalho
• Pereira
• Menezes
• Ribeiro

Most of Brazilian surnames refer to poor colonists and convicts who were the first immigrants into the nation, in 16th century. Since many of them had no family name, they were called "da Costa" when living near the sea coast or "da Silva" (from the jungle) if lived inland. The surname "dos Santos" (from the saints) was given to orphan children. Other common people names include some from Iberian origin, such as Pires, Rodrigues, Lopes, Mendes, Fernandes - notice that they end with -es, not -ez as in Spanish. "New Christians" (converted Jews) adopted names after trees (Pereira, Oliveira) geographic (Ribeiro, Matos) or animals (Coelho, Peixe). The middle and upper classes generally have non-Portuguese names, especially Italian, German and Jewish, from more recent immigrations (this is reflected in several of Brazilian presidents).

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
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) Lü3
14. (徐) Xu2
15. (孙) Sun1
16. (朱) Zhu1
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.

Czech Republic

1. Novák (70 504)
2. Svoboda (52 088)
3. Novotný (49 962)
4. Dvořák (46 099)
5. Černý (36 743)
6. Procházka (33 274)
7. Kučera (31 286)
8. Veselý (26 481)
9. Horák (25 174)
10. Němec (22 795)
11. Marek (22 548)
12. Pokorný (22 203)
13. Pospíšil (22 189)
14. Hájek (21 276)
15. Jelínek (20 733)
16. Král (20 510)
17. Růžička (19846)
18. Beneš (19 600)
19. Fiala (19 121)
20. Sedláček (18 484)

Feminized names included (m. Novák - f. Nováková).
Source: Ministry of Interior (as of 2002).

Denmark

Most popular Danish family names (as of 2004) [1]

1. Jensen 303089
2. Nielsen 296850
3. Hansen 248968
4. Pedersen 186913
5. Andersen 172894
6. Christensen 133033
7. Larsen 129662
8. Sørensen 124175
9. Rasmussen 104130
10. Jørgensen 98354
11. Petersen 92189
12. Madsen 70176
13. Kristensen 65074
14. Olsen 54044
15. Thomsen 40514
16. Christiansen 40224
17. Poulsen 34203
18. Johansen 33120
19. Knudsen 31977
20. Mortensen 31252

The most popular danish family names all end with "sen", meaning "son". That means, that for example "Jensen" is "Son of Jens", "Poulsen" is "Son of Poul". An example would be if Hans Petersens father was Peter Sørensen, Hans' fathers name was Peter, and his grandfather Søren. His son would then be Firstname Hansen. This method of naming children was widely used up to the middle of the 19th century. Sometimes it was also common to name girls f.ex. "Jensdatter" or "Poulsdatter", meaning daughter of Jens, or daughter of Poul. These names are seldonly seen in Denmark, but in Iceland, the "datter"-phrase, which in icelandic is "dottir", is stil widely known and used.

Nowadays, the "sen" names have lost their meanings, as women use the names too. It is not common anymore, that Hans Petersens son would be Hansen, but more likely Petersen. Though, the "old" method is still used.

Estonia

• Tamm
• Mägi

Finland

Source: Population Register Centre, 17 May 2004. (Percentages based on the population of Finland on 1 January 2004.)

1. Virtanen - 24,298 (0.466%)
2. Korhonen - 23,698 (0.454%)
3. Nieminen - 21,906 (0.420%)
4. Mäkinen - 21,773 (0.417%)
5. Mäkelä - 19,716 (0.378%)
6. Hämäläinen - 19,577 (0.375%)
7. Laine - 18,952 (0.363%)
8. Koskinen - 18,023 (0.345%)
9. Heikkinen - 17,892 (0.343%)
10. Järvinen - 17,442 (0.334%)

France

Source: [2]

1. Martin
2. Bernard
3. Thomas
4. Petit
5. Durand
6. Richard
7. Moreau
8. Dubois
9. Robert
10. Laurent
11. Simon
12. Michel
13. Leroy
14. Garcia
15. Lefebvre
16. Roux
17. David
18. Bertrand
19. Fournier
20. Girard
21. Bonnet
22. Morel
23. Rousseau
24. Lambert
25. Blanc

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. Most of these names formerly were names of different crafts, i.e. Müller is linked to working a mill.

Hungary

official data of the Central Personal Data Processing Office at Hungary's Ministry of Interior in 1998 [3] via [4]

1. Nagy (244663)
2. Kovács (228274)
3. Tóth (223291)
4. Szabó (217066)
5. Horváth (201524)
6. Kiss (139919)
7. Varga (137398)
8. Molnár (112878)
9. Németh (97715)
10. Farkas (83755)
11. Balogh (79653)
12. Papp (56235)
13. Takács (55180)
14. Juhász (54267)
15. Mészáros (42738)
16. Lakatos (41005)
17. Simon (39881)
18. Oláh (37147)
19. Fekete (34755)
20. Rácz (34518)
21. Szilágyi (32628)
22. Török (27888)
23. Fehér (27262)
24. Gál (26557)
25. Balázs (26158)

In Hungary, the family name is usually given first.

India

Main article: Indian family name

1. Singh
2. Kumar
3. Sharma or Sarma
4. Patel
5. Shah
6. Lal
7. Gupta
8. Bhat
9. Rao
10. Reddy
11. Jain
12. Sastri or Shastri
13. Iyer
14. Iyengar
15. Yadhav or Yadav
16. Choudary or Chowdary
17. Gowda or Gouda

Ireland

top 20, see: [5]

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

Names starting with O' are patronymic.

Israel

1. Cohen (כהן)
2. Levi (לוי)

The name Cohen belongs to the members of the ancient family of priests (Kohanim, descendants of Aaron). The name Levi belongs to the members of the family of Levites, descendants of Levi.

Japan

Main article: Japanese name

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) Shimizu

Korea

Main article: Korean name#Family names

1. 김 (Kim, Gim)
2. 이 (Lee, Yi, I)
3. 박 (Park, Pak, Bak)
4. 최 (Choi, Choe)
5. 정 (Jung, Chung, Jeong)
6. 강 (Gang, Kang)
7. 조 (Cho, Jo)
8. 윤 (Yoon, Yun)
9. 장 (Jang, Chang)
10. 임 (Lim, Im)
11. 한 (Han)
12. 신 (Shin, Sin)
13. 서 (Suh, Seo)
14. 권 (Kwon, Gwon)
15. 손 (Son)
16. 황 (Whang, Hwang)
17. 송 (Song)
18. 안 (Ahn, An)
19. 유 (Yoo, Yu)
20. 홍 (Hong)

Korean surnames have a variety of ways of being romanized.

Latvia

1. Bērziņš (Berzins)
2. Kalniņš (Kalnins)
3. Ozoliņš (Ozolins)

Literally translated - the diminutive forms of birch, hill and oak...

The Netherlands

from the 1947 census

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

Source: Meertens Instituut

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%)

Names ending in sen are originally patronymic.
Source: Statistics Norway

Nuevo León, (Mexico)

1. Martínez (8.50%)
2. Rodríguez (8.14%)
3. García (7.14%)
4. González (7.09%)
5. Hernández (7.06%)

Source: GARCÍA, Miriam Para regios...los Martínez Periódico El Norte 18 de marzo de 2003.

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

Quebec, Canada

The 50 most popular surnames in Quebec

1. Tremblay (1.13%)
2. Gagnon (0.82%)
3. Roy (0.77%)
4. Côté (0.74%)
5. Bouchard (0.56%)
6. Gauthier (0.55%)
7. Morin (0.51%)
8. Lavoie (0.49%)
9. Fortin (0.47%)
10. Gagné (0.47%)
11. Pelletier (0.45%)
12. Bélanger (0.44%)
13. Bergeron (0.41%)
14. Lévesque (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. Dubé (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. Bédard (0.25%)
38. Bernier (0.24%)
39. Couture (0.24%)
40. Richard (0.23%)
41. Michaud (0.23%)
42. Desjardins (0.23%)
43. Hébert (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%

Sources: Institut de la statistique du Québec, Quelques Statistiques sur les Noms de Famille and Les 6 000 premiers noms de famille par ordre alphabétique, Québec

Romania

1. Popescu
2. Popa
3. Radu
4. Ionescu
5. Şerban
6. Matei
7. Stoica
8. Gheorghe
9. Constantin
10. Stan
11. Dumitrescu
12. Mihai
13. Ioniţă
14. Dumitru
15. Dinu
16. Tudor
17. Dobre
18. Barbu
19. Ştefan
20. Florea
21. Ene
22. Vasile
23. Marin
24. Ghiţă
25. Georgescu

Russia

Source 1000 surnames of Krasnoyarsk

1. Иванов (Ivanov)
2. Кузнецов (Kuznetsov)
3. Попов (Popov)
4. Петров (Petrov)
5. Васильев (Vasiljev)
6. Смирнов (Smirnov)
7. Козлов (Kozlov)
8. Михайлов (Mihajlov)
9. Семенов (Semenov)
10. Степанов (Stepanov)

Serbia and Montenegro

• Petrović
• Jovanović

Spain

Source: [6] - Data from December 1999.

1. García - 1,378,000 people (3.48%)
2. Fernández - 851,000 (2.15%)
3. González - 839,000 (2.12%)
4. Rodríguez - 804,000 (2.03%)
5. López - 796,000 (2.01%)
6. Martínez - 788,000 (1.97%)
7. Sánchez - 725,000 (1.83%)
8. Pérez - 709,000 (1.79%)
9. Martín - 459,000 (1.16%)
10. Gómez - 440,000 (1.11%)
11. Ruiz - 321,000 (0.81%)
12. Hernández - 305,000 (0.77%)
13. Jiménez - 293,000 (0.74%)
14. Díez - 293,000 (0.74%)
15. Álvarez - 273,000 (0.69%)
16. Moreno - 261,000 (0.66%)
17. Muñoz - 241,000 (0.61%)
18. Alonso - 206,000 (0.52%)
19. Gutiérrez - 170,000 (0.43%)
20. Romero - 170,000 (0.43%)
21. Navarro - 158,400 (0.40%)
22. Torres - 134,600 (0.34%)
23. Domínguez - 134,600 (0.34%)
24. Gil - 134,600 (0.34%)
25. Vázquez - 130,000 (0.33%)
26. Serrano - 122,700 (0.31%)
27. Ramos - 118,000 (0.30%)
28. Blanco - 118,000 (0.30%)
29. Sanz - 106,900 (0.27%)
30. Castro - 102,900 (0.26%)
31. Suárez - 102,900 (0.26%)
32. Ortega - 99,000 (0.25%)
33. Rubio - 99,000 (0.25%)
34. Molina - 99,000 (0.25%)
35. Delgado - 95,000 (0.24%)
36. Ramírez - 95,000 (0.24%)
37. Morales - 95,000 (0.24%)
38. Ortiz - 87,120 (0.22%)
39. Marín - 83,160 (0.21%)
40. Iglesias - 83,160 (0.21%)

Family names ending in -ez are typically patronymic

Sweden

official statistics

• 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 the United Kingdom 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), but because of the greater diversity of these names each specific name is less common than most "son-names". Noble persons in Sweden often, but not always, have surnames referring to their coat of arms or non-swedish names.

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[7]:

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%)

United States

see Census data

(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 Johansson which was frequently changed to Johnson, and the German Müller changed to Miller. Some very common Swedish names were so similar that only a minor change of spelling was necessary, such as Andersson and Jonsson. This is why these names are much more common in the U.S. than in the United Kingdom.

Vietnam

• Nguyễn (Nguyen)

See also

• Most popular names
• Family name affixes