“Smith” is still the most commonly used surname in every English-speaking country around the globe, a study has found.

Lending firm NetCredit has researched the world’s most common family names by country by charting its usage in a series of maps.

The maps show that Smith is still the most frequently used surname in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The company also researched the etymology of each name and categorized them.

A surname has five possible starting points, according to the study: an occupation, a personal description, the name of a place, the name of an ancestor or to signify a link to a benefactor.

The name “Smith” originates as an Anglo-Saxon term for a metal worker or blacksmith.

Similarly, the most popular surname in Luxembourg is “Schmit,” which derives from a similar German root. In the U.S., the name is so popular that it’s shared by one in every 121 residents. In Ireland, where Irish is the national and official first language, Murphy is the most common surname.

A four-year study by the University of the West of England in 2016 found that over 90 percent of the 45,602 surnames in the English dictionary are native to Britain and Ireland.

The use of surnames in England started around the 14th century but eventually became law when King Henry VIII ordered that all new births be registered in the name of the father. Some reports put the very first use of surnames as early as 2852 B.C. in China.

In other parts of the world, the present day distribution of surnames is different with many more people with the same name. In China, one in every 13 people have “Wang” as their surname. In South Korea, one in five are named “Kim,” and in Vietnam, 25 percent of people are named “Nguyen.”

In Europe surnames tend to either come from a profession, a father’s name or even from the varied landscape of the continent. “Gruber” is the most popular Austrian surname, an evolution from the Middle High German word for “pit.” “Berzins,” the most used Latvian family name, originates from the word for “birch,” which would signify someone who lived among birch trees.

The Slavic “-ov” means “the son of” and is used similarly to the suffix “-en” on the end of “Jensen” or “Hansen” in Scandinavia.

Words to Learn 相关词汇

【词源】cíyuán etymology the origin and historical development of words and phrases

【施惠者】shīhuìzhě benefactor a person who confers a benefit

一项研究发现，“史密斯”仍然是全球所有英语国家最常用的姓氏。

信贷公司NetCredit研究了各国最常见的姓氏，并将其使用情况绘制在多张地图上。

这些地图显示，史密斯仍然是美国、英国、加拿大、澳大利亚和新西兰最常用的姓氏。该公司还研究了每个姓氏的词源，并对其进行了分类。根据这项研究，姓氏有五个可能的来源：职业、个人描述、地名、祖先的名字，或表示与某个施惠者的联系。

姓氏“史密斯”起源于盎格鲁–撒克逊人对金属工人或铁匠的称呼。

同样，卢森堡最常见的姓氏是“Schmit”，源于一个类似的德语词。

在美国，这个姓氏非常普遍，每121位居民中就有一位姓史密斯。

在爱尔兰，墨菲是最常见的姓氏。爱尔兰语是爱尔兰全国和官方的第一语言。

西英格兰大学2016年一项为期四年的研究发现，英语词典中45602个姓氏中，超过90%源自英国和爱尔兰。

在英国，姓氏的使用始于14世纪左右，但在亨利八世国王下令，所有新生儿都要以父亲的姓氏登记之后最终成为法律。

有报道称，中国是最早使用姓氏的国家，大约在公元前2852年开始使用。

在全球其他地区，如今的姓氏分布是不同的，而很多人姓氏相同。

在中国，每13个人中就有一个人姓王。

在韩国，五分之一的人姓金，而在越南，25%的人姓阮。

在欧洲，姓氏往往要么来自职业，要么来自父亲的名字，甚至来自欧洲大陆的各种风景。

“格鲁伯”是最普遍的奥地利姓氏，由中古高地德语单词“pit(深坑)”演变而来。拉脱维亚最常见的姓氏是“Berzins”起源于“birch（桦树）”这个词，表示住在桦树林里的人。

斯拉夫语后缀“-ov”的意思是“XX的儿子”，在斯堪的纳维亚半岛，它的用法类似于“Jensen”（詹森）或“Hansen”（汉森）的后缀“-en”。(chinadaily.com.cn)