Neat. I just recently found an old letter pertaining to my great-great-grandfather selling a house in Germany prior to coming to the US in the 1880s or so. The town mentioned is the site of a cluster of his (uncommon) surname.
Map of Surnames in Europe
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Re: Map of Surnames in Europe
#92seems like just a ad trap to me
Re: Map of Surnames in Europe
#93Vaguely related amusing bit of trivia: the word for smith or blacksmith is one of the most common names about everywhere: Smith (England), Schmidt (Germany), Smit/Smet (Belgium, Netherlands), Fabre/Favre/Lefèvre/Lefèbvre (France), Ferrari/Fabri (Italy), Ferrero/Herrero (Spain), Ferreiro (Portugal), Kowalski (Poland), Haddad (Morocco), Demirci (Turkey), Demirdjian (Armenia), Gof/Goff/Le Goff (Brittany, Wales), Gowan/G…
But not in Sweden, there's 220 persons with "Smed" as surname here. We do have 15 men and 10 women with it as (any of) their given name(s).
Re: Map of Surnames in Europe
#94This seems to have answered a longstanding question I had about French surnames. I had come across a presentation given by a person bearing the name "La Rochefoucauld" and I always wondered if she was descended from the eponymous noble family or related to the famous writer. This website tells me that in France the name "La Rochefoucauld" is uncommon but not rare so I guess the answer to that question is "maybe".
I also searched for "Monteverdi" out of curiosity and the largest cluster bearing that name are in Lombardy centred around Cremona, which was indeed where the famous composer was born four and a half centuries ago.
Re: Map of Surnames in Europe
#95Portugal isn't Europe?
Re: Map of Surnames in Europe
#96For some reason it is lacking Portugal: https://www.mapadesobrenomes.com/en/
Portugal is such an homogeneous country that this is basically a map of population density x national frequency of the surname. Only exception I found is Viegas, which has a higher than expected concentration in Algarve.
Re: Map of Surnames in Europe
#97Vaguely related amusing bit of trivia: the word for smith or blacksmith is one of the most common names about everywhere: Smith (England), Schmidt (Germany), Smit/Smet (Belgium, Netherlands), Fabre/Favre/Lefèvre/Lefèbvre (France), Ferrari/Fabri (Italy), Ferrero/Herrero (Spain), Ferreiro (Portugal), Kowalski (Poland), Haddad (Morocco), Demirci (Turkey), Demirdjian (Armenia), Gof/Goff/Le Goff (Brittany, Wales), Gowan/G…
To add to this bit of trivia. In Sweden this was never a thing where your job became your surname. If you go to a cemetery you'll sometimes see the occupation on the gravestone though, especially on older graves and if it was a more higher class job.
Re: Map of Surnames in Europe
#98Anyone else found a surname with just 1 "place"?
Started looking av UK and tried a few I could think of. I'm from Sweden so I went for the obvious ones like Smith, Black, White and then just for laughs continued with colors (oops, that was UK so colours, i suppose). Went with Red, Blue and so on, was surprised by how many Pinks there were but then hit "gold" (1861 places) with Magenta, one place!
Re: Map of Surnames in Europe
#99Very neat. My ancestors are not European, they are Lebanese, but I was able to find their last name in the countries they emigrated to long ago in Europe, and the cities make sense, although there's more than I thought in certain countries! For those interested, depending on where you live, you can access Ancestry.com through the Public Library for free. In Ottawa, that was case, although as of Jan. 1, 2022, you have…
I’m curious to hear about the migration story? We’re there many Lebanese immigrants in Europe in the 1800s?
Re: Map of Surnames in Europe
#100I thought my last name was a variation of an English last name. But apparently there's ~15000 hits on the map for my last name and only ~1000 for the name I thought was original spelling. I think this is to blame with a very famous musician having the other spelling.