We are used to the fact that every person has a last name. And are there exceptions? Are there many surnames in the world? When and where did the very first appear? Which of them are the most popular all over the world and in individual countries? If you are interested in the answers to these questions, read about everything in order in the article.
The inheritance from the ancestors is different
Now it is impossible to imagine a person without a surname. Nevertheless, there are such people. For example, in Iceland people only manage by personal name and patronymic (patronymic). And at the beginning of the XX century. in this country, a law was even passed prohibiting indigenous Icelanders from having a surname. Since then, only foreigners or those with foreign roots have it. In addition, there are no surnames among the inhabitants of the underdeveloped states of Africa and Asia, nicknames are used to distinguish them. In the rest of the world, people have long been accustomed to using generic names and cannot imagine their life without them. Over time, the most common and popular surnames stood out. And some, on the contrary, have become rare and outlandish.
Originally from antiquity
The origin of this specific generic name dates back to ancient Rome. The Latin word familia means "family" or "clan". In Russia, such self-names appeared in the XIV century. and gradually replaced personal nicknames. In any country, the first surnames were received by noble persons, and then the tradition passed to other classes, gradually reaching the lowest.
Reflecting the features of a particular language and culture, there are many diverse surnames in the world. It is difficult to calculate how many there are in the world, but the most popular surnames can be distinguished. If you look at this rating, you get the impression: the shorter, the more popular. The top four lines are occupied by Asian generic names, because often popular surnames were formed from hieroglyphs.
The first five of the most-most
First place - Lee (Lee, Li, Ly). According to unofficial statistics, it is worn by more than 100 million people in the world. Most of them live in China, Vietnam and Korea, but there are many Europeans and Americans among them who inherited this generic name from some ancestor.
In second place in the ranking of “Most Popular Surnames” is Chang (Zhang). This Chinese surname appeared more than 4 thousand years ago, and during this time it has become one of the most common in Asia and around the world. She has options for Zhang and Chen.
Third place is Wang (or Wong, Wang is written in Latin). Like many popular surnames, it originated in China. There is nothing surprising if we recall that about one and a half billion people on our planet are Chinese by nationality. And since there are only 450 Chinese surnames, it becomes clear why some of them are repeated so often.
Fourth place - Vietnamese surname Nguyen. It is so common that in Vietnam itself it is worn by 40% of citizens. It is hard to imagine in a European country.
The second five of the most-most
The next three lines of the ranking were occupied by Spanish and Portuguese popular surnames.
Fifth place - Garcia. This Spanish surname is widely heard. It is extremely popular in Spain itself, as well as in the countries of South America, Cuba and the Philippines.
Sixth place - Gonzales (or Gonzalez). Another very common surname in the Spanish-speaking world.
Seventh place is Hernandez. Formed in the 15th century, this generic name now bears the inhabitants of Spain, Chile, Mexico, the USA and some other countries.
The last three popular surnames in the global top ten come from English, Russian and German.
Eighth place - Smith. This is the most common surname in England, Australia and the USA. Translated into Russian, it means "blacksmith".
Many popular English surnames are associated with the names of professions. For example: Potter (“potter”), Miller (“miller”), Baker (“baker”), Cook (“cook”), Ward (“guard”), Butler (“butler”), etc. Names of paints no less often became the source from which such popular English surnames came as Brown ("brown"), White ("white), Green (" green), Gray ("gray), Black (" black "), etc. . d.
Ninth place - Smirnov. There are several versions of the origin of this surname. According to one of them, it comes from the word “quiet”, and according to the other, from the Old Russian greeting: “With the new world!”. Just like the English, popular surnames in Russia are often formed from the names of the first professions: Kuznetsov, Melnikov, Goncharov, Popov, Stolyarov.
The tenth place in the world ranking is Muller. This is also a “professional” generic name: translated from German means “miller”. This surname is common in all countries that speak this language: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg.
Studying surnames is a fascinating activity and also one of the ways to immerse yourself in the language and culture of a country.