Our last names, to some degree, show our history while also shaping our manner. Here you will read about the most common last names in the world.
Names are important. They show many things about us and can even reveal our origin. Some say, ‘don’t judge the book by its cover,’ yet this proverb is not entirely true about last names. The reason is that they were initially given to our ancestors by society based on their acts and the impression they had over others. Yes, they have changed over the years, but their primary meanings haven’t changed much. If you are curious about the most common surnames in the world, read this article of Tech Trends.
Most Common Last Names in the World
Ali
Ali is among the most common surnames in every country and also in Somalia, Eritrea, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Libya. It’s very similar to Alaoui in Morocco, a French take on the same name. It is a patronymic name comes from Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad. The word means “high” or “lofty.”
Brown
Brown indeed might’ve been all around as straightforward as naming somebody after their hair or eye tone. Names based on appearances are historically typical.
Richard Coates, the head of the group of researchers whose discoveries on family names were published in the “Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland,” has an entertaining theory about this: ” There are … names where the origin describes the original bearer such as Short … though Short may, in fact, be an ironic ‘nickname’ surname for a tall person.” So, indeed, individuals were ridiculing your ancestors a great many years ago, yet Brown is now one of the most common last names in every country.
Deng
In South Sudan, where the climate is highly tropical, many are named after the Dinka rain and sky god Deng, who was accepted as a progenitor to certain clans. However unrelated, Deng is likewise among the most popular last names in the world, also throughout East Asia.
Devi
In India, this well-known last name hails from the Sanskrit word for “goddess.” Devi is the mother goddess in the Hindu practice who assumes the form of all other goddesses. Though it’s just viewed as the most well-known last name in India, its Indonesian variation is Dewi. It is also among the most common last names in the world.
García
García is the most famous last name in Spain and Ecuador and is among the most common surnames in the world particularly in Spanish-talking regions (without a doubt, it’s the most common last name in California and Texas). It comes from the Latin garsea, which means “bear.”
González
González is not only is considered as one of the most common surnames in every country, but is possibly the most widely recognized last name in South America, positioning number one in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Venezuela. It means “son of Gonzalo,” which itself comes from a Latin form of a Germanic name that meant “war” or “battle.”
Hansen
In Norway, Hansen is the most common name, and it’s a patronymic name meaning “son of Hans.” The – sen suffix is typical all through Scandinavian nations overall, hence you can consider Hansen as one of the most common last names in every country around that area.
Hernández
Hernández is a Spanish and Portuguese last name that came into common use around the fifteenth century. Initially a patronymic (a part of a personal name based on the name of one’s dad, granddad, or earlier male ancestor), it implies son of Hernán or, at times, son of the traveler. This family name happens mainly in Mexico, the USA, Chile, Spain, Cuba, and is among the most popular last names in the world of those areas.
Ilunga
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this famous last name gets from a Bantu word that means “a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, endure it a second time, but never a third time.” So as one of the items of our list of the most common last names in the world, it shows those that are not that much patient.
Ivanov
Last names didn’t exactly become far and wide in Russia until the fall of serfdom in the nineteenth century. However, some are named after animals, and a couple are occupational in nature; Russian last names are mostly patronymic, meaning they allude to the father’s name. At first, the original patriarch was who determined the family name for generations to come.
Yet, Russians likewise utilize their surname as a precursor to the family name. Thus, for instance, Svetlana Ivanova Petrova would mean Svetlana, the daughter of Ivan from the Petrov family. Note that Russians gender the endings of their last names, so Ivanov/Ivanova are the two adaptations of a similar name, which are among the most common surnames in the world.
Jones/Johnson
Becoming more well known in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the United Kingdom, Jones is an English and Welsh variety of John, one of the most common surnames in every country. Genealogy Bank goes into further detail, saying that anything endings in “- son” is a patronymic, meaning “son of John.”
John name comes from Latin, which trace back to Greek, which goes further back to the Hebrew Bible, meaning “Yahweh has favored.” The name’s European popularity dates to the Christian period when “St. John the Baptist, St. John the Evangelist and almost 1,000 other Christian saints” were relevant, as per Genealogy Bank. Johnson is the second most common last name in the US, after Smith.
Joseph
Joseph is one of the most common last names in every country and is most predominant in Haiti. In the English, German, French and Jewish renditions, the family name comes from the personal name, the Hebrew Yosef, and that means “may He (God) add (another son).”
In the Book of Genesis, Joseph is Jacob’s favorite son, yet he is sold into slavery by his brothers. He eventually rises to become a leading minister in Egypt, and in the New Testament, he is the husband of the Virgin Mary.
Kim
Kim is the most common last name in both North and South Korea, as well as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. About 20% of South Korea’s population (and 25 percent of North Korea) has this last name. The word means “gold,” yet its fame as one of the most popular last names in the world has significantly more to do with its origin as a royal name.
For quite a while, most people in Korean society didn’t have last names except if they were royalty or aristocracy. When it became customary for the working class to adopt last names, many would take on respected names like Kim, Lee, or Park, frequently by fudging their family genealogy records.
LI/Lee
The Chinese character means “plum” or “plum tree,” yet the name can likewise mean “minister.” The venerated king Gao Yao, minister to Emperor Shun, took Li as a second name when it was common practice to have numerous family names before your individual name, as per Wee Kek Koon’s report on Chinese family names.
Considered as one of the most common last names in the world, Li became popular after Gao Yao’s reign when, during the Tang Dynasty, leaders would gift the name Li to their most confided-in allies and fiercest fighters. This last name-giving practice resulted in almost 40% of the world’s Chinese people having the last names Wang, Li, Zhang, Liu, Chen, Yang, Huang, Zhao, Zhou, and Wu.
Mohamed
Though it comes in different spellings going from Mahamat to Mohammadi; this last name hails from the Islamic prophet Muhammad and is one of the most common surnames in the world and particularly in Chad, Egypt, Yemen, Comoros, Djibouti, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Maldives.
Moyo
This Zimbabwean name means “the heart.” This, by and large, indicates a character quality of kindness and liveliness, and is among the most common surnames in every country.
Müller/Miller
Kimberly Powell, the author of “The Everything Guide to Online Genealogy,” wrote that “the Müller last name is a German occupational surname for ‘miller,’ from the Middle High German mülnære or müller.” Müller is one of the most common last names in every country specifically in Germany, Switzerland, and parts of France. The English form, Miller, is one of America’s main ten last names.
Nguyen
There’s not much written data to suggest how Vietnamese people named themselves preceding the Chinese occupation under the Han Dynasty. Yet, Nguyen started as one of the numerous last names given to Vietnamese families by China attempting to keep tax information in order. A significant number of them were Vietnamese variants of Chinese words. Nguyen comes from the Chinese Ruan, the name of an ancient Chinese state and a kind of instrument or lute.
Today, many of Vietnamese people have this last name — somewhere close to 30 to 40 percent. This is likewise a result of the fact that last names were assumed to show loyalty to whoever was in power at the time, and it just so happens to be the case that the last ruling family in Vietnam were the Nguyen Dynasty. It is now among the most popular last names in the world.
Patel
Patel comes from the Gujarati language and is a Hindu and Parsi name meaning “village headmen” or “landowner” from the Sanskrit “pạṭtakila” for “tenant of royal land.”
Patel is one of the most common last names in the world but not in India, implying that this particular group of agriculturists was driven from India in droves to find different lives in English-speaking countries.
Rodríguez
Latin America, especially Central America, contains several countries where Rodríguez is the most widely recognized family name: Costa Rica, Panama, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, the Bahamas, and Uruguay. One of the most common surnames in the world, and a patronymic name means “son of Rodrigo” and is gotten from a Germanic word that means “renown” and “power.”
Silva/da Silva
Silva is the most common family name in Portugal, and da Silva takes the lead in Brazil. It has a place with the less renowned class of names that get from places or geological highlights, alluding to a place or places referred to as Silva, which in Latin means “woodland” or “forest.” Yet some reports consider it as one of the most common surnames in every country.
Smirnov
Alexey Mikheev for Russia Beyond translated the Russian “smirny” to “meek.” Although it’s the most well-known Russian family name, Smirnov’s make up just 1.8% of Russia’s populace. Mikheev wrote that in Russia, family names just showed up in the upper classes in the sixteenth century, and after serfdom was ended in the nineteenth century and was patronymic, ending in with “- ov,” “- ev,” and “- in” to determine the father.
As said in this guide to the most common last names in every country, Russians gender their last names to be masculine or feminine, so women would be given the surname Smirnova. The name sounds much like the vodka brand Smirnoff because the founder’s son masked his name to get away from the Bolsheviks.
Smith
In the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, Smith is prevalent. It originated in England and Scotland during the Middle English time as a name that alluded to an individual who works with metal; however, its meaning can be followed much further back to the Old English smitan, which means “to smite, to hit.” It is one of the most popular last names in the world of English language users.
Tesfaye
Tesfaye is one of the most common last names in the world particularly in Ethiopia. It comes from the Amharic tesfa, which means “my hope.”
Wang
Wang is a patronymic name that means “king” in Mandarin, and it’s shared by over 92 million persons in China, making it the king of the most common last names in the world. The reason it’s so populous today may have a lot to do with the fact that many royal families changed their name to Wang when their kingdoms fell under the first Qin dynasty emperor. This was both to save their status and safeguard themselves from assassination.
Williams
Williams is the third most popular family name in the United States. It is likewise trendy in England, Scotland, Australia, and Germany. It is a patronymic family name, meaning it is gotten from a father’s name. In Wales, adding an “s” to the end of a last name means “son of,” which points to Wales as the country of origin, per the Dictionary of American Family Names. In many reports it is mentioned as one of the most common surnames in every country.
Zhang
Zhang is among the most common Chinese family names. In the 1990 version of the Guinness Book of Records it was recorded as the world’s most common last name, with over 100 million individuals globally with this family name, so its no surprise to see it as one of the most common last names in every country. It was likewise positioned third in the People’s Republic of China by the Chinese Academy of Sciences mid-2006. The utilization of this family name traces back to about 4000 years ago.
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Source: Tech Trends