MetaChat - My last name

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18 November 2007

My last name ranks 4,697th out of the 5,000 most common surnames in the U.S., being held by three out of every 100,000 people. Is yours in the list?→[More:]

I thought this was intriguing, too:

Altogether, the census found six million surnames in the United States. Among those, 151,000 were shared by a hundred or more Americans. Four million were held by only one person.

How cool would it be to have a last name shared by NOBODY else in the U.S.?

post by: BoringPostcards at: 19:47 | 37 comments

Name not on the list- didn't even have to check. Checked anyway- not on there.

We were trying to think of why someone would have a last name all their own. We thought of a few reasons- well, two. Immigration, and children with hypenated names. Our pastors' son has a HerLastName-HisLastName last name, and I would imagine he's the only one out there.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 18 November | 20:10

A famous person wears the same size water skis as me
She's got three cars as many years I've lived in this city
Her hair is blonde and mine is brown; they both start with a "b"
But when the phone inside her ribcage rings, it's not for me
But when the phone inside her ribcage rings, it's not for me
Hey!

posted by pieisexactlythree 18 November | 20:21

my name's not on the list. and i am proud to say that i am the only person with my FULL name living in the us. which makes me awfully easy to find.

it's weird: if you google me, you won't get responses about anyone else at all. with the boyfriend, you'll get responses about tons of people, one of whom is in a very similar field to his.

posted by brina 18 November | 20:24

I'm utterly shocked; mine's 756, with 16 occurrences per 100K people, and it's a pretty oddball name.

posted by Miko 18 November | 20:30

Mine is high-ish on the list: number 423.

posted by gaspode 18 November | 20:36

Married name: 482 (increasing)
Maiden name: 378 (decreasing)

posted by deborah 18 November | 20:41

I know without looking that mine's not on the list.

How cool would it be to have a last name shared by NOBODY else in the U.S.?

I think that would be sad... I thought that was going to happen to me, until I found out about some relatives that I didn't know about.

posted by amro 18 November | 20:42

2339, but the list doesn't list it with the "de" prefix (which I might just take out someday... too much trouble).

Funny fact is that just yesterday I met a couple that shares the same surname, with the same spelling (which is the less common one -- the other one is 1627 on that list).

TPS: count mispellings as well. I've met a few people with mispelled surnames whose parents didn't go to the trouble of fixing it.

And, btw, a few weeks ago I was discussing China with a friend. Monosyllabic surnames (which limits them to, I don't know, 500 different ones?), and 1.2 billion people. You're fairly sure to have enough people sharing your surname to start a small country.

posted by qvantamon 18 November | 20:53

Number 4344 is "Guess". I think I'd kill myself after the first few customer service calls.

"What's your last name sir?"
"Guess"
"Smith?"
"No, Guess"
"Sir, please tell me your last name"

posted by qvantamon 18 November | 20:57

I am #3158 - four our of every 100K and down in rank since 1990
The BF is #3615 - three out of every 100K and up in rank

My friend's husband shares the name as one of the Chicago Bears' PR people. He used to get phone calls for interviews about players, games or other NFL stuff. When he told the callers that he's not the person they were looking for, they didn't always believe him. They'd get upset and think that he was just being rude or didn't want to comment.

posted by youngergirl44 18 November | 20:59

Interesting. I knew my maiden name was fairly common (around 450), and married less so - (around 2500). Even at 2500, people ask me "are you related to____" fairly often, and say they asked because it's an unusual name (and of course I never am). Also the married name is down around 285 vs. maiden down 1, so I guess the ____'s don't tend to reproduce, like me! Fun.

posted by rainbaby 18 November | 21:01

Name's not on there. Not surprising - most of my distant relatives immigrated from Switzerland to Canada instead of the US.

posted by dismas 18 November | 21:01

I'm #1340-something, my fiance's name isn't on the list, and I can guarantee that our married name is unique in the entire world. Out of 6 billion people, only us two will have this name.

We ARE unique little snowflakes! :)

posted by muddgirl 18 November | 21:05

I wonder why people with really difficult last names don't change them. I don't mean difficult to pronounce, but difficult to live with. My hubby has a group of cousins with the last name of "Dummer". That's just got to be really tough to go through life with. Especially when the movie came out.

posted by Kangaroo 18 November | 21:06

Broadway is on the list of top 5000 names. I would like to be Mrs. Broadway!

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 18 November | 21:14

My name's not on there. Not surprisingly or anything. No one can even pronounce my last name.

posted by puke & cry 18 November | 21:17

Mine is #1795. 6 out of every 100,000. I've only ever met one non-relative with the name, so that's surprising.

posted by jonmc 18 November | 21:22

BoringPostcards, you're two slots below "Bickel". That's right. I'm talking to you.

posted by felix betachat 18 November | 21:29

TPS, I actually know a woman with the awesome name of Mecca Broadway. (And it's her real name.)

I was surprised that mine was SO low on the list... I've run into a couple of non-relatives with the name, in my life, so I just assumed there were more of us.

Heh, felix!

posted by BoringPostcards 18 November | 21:41

My married name is #2949. My maiden name isn't on the list. It's a very uncommon German name.

posted by LoriFLA 18 November | 21:58

331, decreasing. But, I am the only person on the planet with my first and last name.

posted by thebrokedown 18 November | 22:09

115 (down from 109 in 1990) which for some reason really surprised me. I am one of two people on the planet wiht my first and last name.

posted by jessamyn 18 November | 22:26

My name is also unranked. It's pretty unpronouncable anyway.

posted by danf 18 November | 22:36

I'm about midway on the list. Mrs. Plinth's maiden name isn't on the list.

posted by plinth 18 November | 22:42

My last name is ~500. I thought it would be higher on the list (I mean, less common).

When you google my name you get a whack of genealogy websites (it's a pretty standard boring 'classic' first name and Irish last name, though we aren't Irish, we're Scottish, long story). There is also a not-very famous actress with a name that is one letter off from my full first & last names. So that's who most of the google hits are for.

posted by SassHat 18 November | 22:57

Not on the list. The "British" version of my surname (with an H after the W) is not on the list. My mother's maiden name is not on the list, but #5000 is close (and no, that does NOT mean I'm related to Ted McGinley).

posted by wendell 18 November | 23:44

Maiden name: #180
Married name: no one else in the world (yay for hyphens)

posted by gomichild 19 November | 01:49

My maiden name is 2221 at 7 in 100,000... But I bet in Germany it would be among the top 10. My married name doesn't occur in the top 5,000 - surprise!

posted by taz 19 November | 02:06

2489

posted by brujita 19 November | 03:06

I'm just shy of the 1000 mark, which is a bit unexpected; I had expected to be much further down.

More interestingly, if I misspell my surname in the way in which everybody always misspells it (voting with the crowd, as it were), then it doesn't show up at all. So rather counterintuitivly, the tendency is to render my name more exotic.

posted by Triode 19 November | 03:19

OMG taz... was your dad usually "away on business" during the full moon?

posted by BoringPostcards 19 November | 03:37

My nom de guerre is now "Brown Smith-Johnson Williams".

posted by BitterOldPunk 19 November | 04:02

Heh, BP. No... he was too busy at home eating Kaiser rolls

posted by taz 19 November | 04:30

Mine is 403rd.

While working today, I was looking at some information for a lady with the surname of Cock. She works for a government agency and her colleagues and her constantly have problems with the e-mail filtering system rejecting e-mails with her name in them for "unacceptable language". Apparently, Cock is not one of the 5,000 most common surnames in the US. Surprise, surprise.

posted by dg 19 November | 06:54

4805! And increasing! Look out, Stidham and Goolsby...soon you'll be back with Stallworth!

posted by mdonley 19 November | 07:38

Huh. "Nguyen" is now more commonplace than "Murphy."

posted by PaxDigita 19 November | 08:53

My last name is not on the list, but the 4 names it's usually mistaken for are at 164, 1373, 2171, and 4757.

posted by expialidocious 19 November | 12:43

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