6 ms·

The most popular last name in every country in the world, and what they mean

31 points by shrikant 7y ago

nealabq 7y ago
Either there used to be a lot of iron-workers (smiths) around in English-speaking areas back then, or iron-workers were especially good at making babies (and not just horseshoes). If we were adopting surnames today, I'd pick Hacker over Engineerer or Softwarer or Programmer. Or maybe Forger, since it is someone who builds things. Smiths also forge.
- legostormtroopr 7y ago
  Two things: you don't send Smiths into war, you need them at home forging weapons so they probably survived longer. And there are many types of Smith - blacksmiths, silversmiths, goldsmiths, etc...
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Well, not just English speaking areas, what about the Schmidts? And the Fabers? And the Kovács? And the Herreras? And the Haddads? And the Ferraros/Ferraris? And the Kowalskis? And the Kuznets(ovs)? And the McGowans? And the Lefebvres? And the Smits? And the Favres? And the Martels?
probably_wrong 7y ago
If the author is here, they might want to do a small polishing in their Spanish section. For Argentina, it says > This literally means “son of Gonzalo,” and though you don’t meet a lot of Gonzalos walking around these days, back in medieval times you did meet a good number of Gundisalvus’.* First, you absolutely meet a lot of Gonzalos - it's a very popular name in South America. Second, and nitpicking: we can make an educated guess that the ~ez suffix means "son of". This is also seen in "Fernandez", which is "son of Fernando". But then, why does Lopez mean "wolf" and not "son of the wolf"? And shouldn't "Martinez" be "Son of Martin"?
- zamadatix 7y ago
  "But then, why does Lopez mean "wolf" and not "son of the wolf"? And shouldn't "Martinez" be "Son of Martin"? " According to Wikipedia: "López is a surname of Spanish origin. It was originally a patronymic, meaning 'Son of Lope', Lope itself being a Spanish given name deriving from Latin lupus, meaning 'wolf'." "It originated as a patronymic surname, meaning 'son of Martín'... itself derived from the Latin Martinus, whose root is Mars, the name of the Roman god of fertility and war." . So it seems the article left out some detail from each.
ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
"Devi" can't be the most popular last name in India. Lots of Indians have the place of birth as last name or fathers name (eg Sundar pichai or vishwanathan Anand) with no last name technically Devi is sometimes used as filler name just like kumar. I would assume real last names like shah or Patel or aggrawal to be more popular
- manishsharan 7y ago
  You are right. Devi is an Salutation mostly used in North India to address women just like you would use Ms. or Mrs. to address a woman in English. For example Mrs Jane Smith addressed in Hindi would be "Jane Devi"
yyhhsj0521 7y ago
"王 means prince, king, or vast" is probably an error caused by confusing 王 with 汪.
- elkos 7y ago
  Yeap king the translation I was familiar with when I was living with a Chinese person.
Ghjklov 7y ago
A lute? My sources tell me that "Nguyen" means "origin". Who to believe?
nmstoker 7y ago
Interesting but they are slightly off with Carl: they say it means man, whereas it's really "free man" an important distinction! Looks like they've dumbed things down a bit (as there's a similar discussion on Lopez below)
jimmydef 7y ago
"Over 723,000 people, or one in eight Singaporeans, has this name from the Tan state of the Zhou dynasty." Yeah, this is complete nonsense. The "Tan" surname is basically the hokkien/min-nan pronunciation of the chinese character 陈, which is basically pronounced Chen in mandarin and Chan in cantonese. It has nothing to do with the surname 譚 which is pronounced Tan in mandarin. Due to the presence of many chinese language groups in singapore (unlike hk which is predominantly cantonese or mainland china and taiwan which uses mandarin), transliterations of surnames can be tricky. The same surname 王 can be written in many ways in singapore (Ong, Heng, Wang, Wong, etc.)

31 points by shrikant 7y ago

Either there used to be a lot of iron-workers (smiths) around in English-speaking areas back then, or iron-workers were especially good at making babies (and not just horseshoes). If we were adopting surnames today, I'd pick Hacker over Engineerer or Softwarer or Programmer. Or maybe Forger, since it is someone who builds things. Smiths also forge.

legostormtroopr 7y ago
Two things: you don't send Smiths into war, you need them at home forging weapons so they probably survived longer. And there are many types of Smith - blacksmiths, silversmiths, goldsmiths, etc...
perl4ever 7y ago
Well, not just English speaking areas, what about the Schmidts? And the Fabers? And the Kovács? And the Herreras? And the Haddads? And the Ferraros/Ferraris? And the Kowalskis? And the Kuznets(ovs)? And the McGowans? And the Lefebvres? And the Smits? And the Favres? And the Martels?

probably_wrong 7y ago

If the author is here, they might want to do a small polishing in their Spanish section. For Argentina, it says > This literally means “son of Gonzalo,” and though you don’t meet a lot of Gonzalos walking around these days, back in medieval times you did meet a good number of Gundisalvus’.* First, you absolutely meet a lot of Gonzalos - it's a very popular name in South America. Second, and nitpicking: we can make an educated guess that the ~ez suffix means "son of". This is also seen in "Fernandez", which is "son of Fernando". But then, why does Lopez mean "wolf" and not "son of the wolf"? And shouldn't "Martinez" be "Son of Martin"?

zamadatix 7y ago
"But then, why does Lopez mean "wolf" and not "son of the wolf"? And shouldn't "Martinez" be "Son of Martin"? " According to Wikipedia: "López is a surname of Spanish origin. It was originally a patronymic, meaning 'Son of Lope', Lope itself being a Spanish given name deriving from Latin lupus, meaning 'wolf'." "It originated as a patronymic surname, meaning 'son of Martín'... itself derived from the Latin Martinus, whose root is Mars, the name of the Roman god of fertility and war." . So it seems the article left out some detail from each.

ganeshkrishnan 7y ago

"Devi" can't be the most popular last name in India. Lots of Indians have the place of birth as last name or fathers name (eg Sundar pichai or vishwanathan Anand) with no last name technically Devi is sometimes used as filler name just like kumar. I would assume real last names like shah or Patel or aggrawal to be more popular

manishsharan 7y ago
You are right. Devi is an Salutation mostly used in North India to address women just like you would use Ms. or Mrs. to address a woman in English. For example Mrs Jane Smith addressed in Hindi would be "Jane Devi"

yyhhsj0521 7y ago

"王 means prince, king, or vast" is probably an error caused by confusing 王 with 汪.

elkos 7y ago
Yeap king the translation I was familiar with when I was living with a Chinese person.

Ghjklov 7y ago

A lute? My sources tell me that "Nguyen" means "origin". Who to believe?

nmstoker 7y ago

Interesting but they are slightly off with Carl: they say it means man, whereas it's really "free man" an important distinction! Looks like they've dumbed things down a bit (as there's a similar discussion on Lopez below)

jimmydef 7y ago

"Over 723,000 people, or one in eight Singaporeans, has this name from the Tan state of the Zhou dynasty." Yeah, this is complete nonsense. The "Tan" surname is basically the hokkien/min-nan pronunciation of the chinese character 陈, which is basically pronounced Chen in mandarin and Chan in cantonese. It has nothing to do with the surname 譚 which is pronounced Tan in mandarin. Due to the presence of many chinese language groups in singapore (unlike hk which is predominantly cantonese or mainland china and taiwan which uses mandarin), transliterations of surnames can be tricky. The same surname 王 can be written in many ways in singapore (Ong, Heng, Wang, Wong, etc.)