English and Welsh Surnames



In America there are many different surnames from a wide assortment of nations and ethnic groups. For those with an English or Welsh surname (England and Wales) and Isle of Mann, there is an online free site to provide you more information about that name.

This site will provide a ranking of some 270,000 surnames with the English or Welsh ethnic background. Sometimes as you do your family history it is great to do a name search only. However, if you have a surname of ‘Smith’ that can be quite a task. The family name of ‘Smith’ is very common — which ranks #1 with 652,563 individuals.

So this is an interesting site to start if you have not checked out about a family name. Don’t just do your own direct family, but include cousins, aunts and uncles.

In the center search box place a name. The numbers for that name and its rank will then appear after clicking search.

Just for the fun of it, place other words that might be a surname and see how many there are.

For example, the month of March is a surname, ranks 1660 and there are 4,815 people in the database with that name. Then there is ‘Lawn’, it ranks 6,273 (way down the list) with 1,072 with that name. Look at ‘Apple’, it ranks 47,935 with only 55 with that name – now that is rare.

Welsh surnames can also be thought of as English names. The ten most popular Welsh surnames are Jones, Williams, Davies, Evans, Thomas, Roberts, Hughes, Edwards, Lewis, and Morris.

If you put in what you think is an English name and it has a very large number in rank and very few people with that name, it could actually be a German or another national name.

So a fun and interesting database to check out.

Photos: Collection of 500 most common English surnames and scene from the Welsh countryside.

Related FamilyTree.com Blogs:

Immigrants to England from 1330 to 1550

Any Famous Welsh Ancestors?

England and Wales Voter Registration 1832 to 1932

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