Here's Why So Many People Are Named Smith

by N/A, 10 years ago | 1 min read

It's the most popular last name in the English-speaking world, so chances are you know a Smith or two.

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Perhaps you're familiar with Will Smith?

Or Patti Smith?

How about Indiana Smith?

Luckily, George Lucas edited himself with that one and went with the last name Jones instead (though it's still another wildly popular last name as well.)

So why are there so many Smiths, anyway?

It holds the title as the most popular last name in England (where it originated), Australia, the United States (where there are at least 2 million), and it's second most popular in Canada as well.

For the answer we have to travel back to 1066 when the Normans invaded Britain.

At the time the British didn't use last names, so they were a fresh slate for the Norman tradition of further distinguishing their citizens.

Some last names come from location -- like Longbottom.

*Valleys were sometimes known as 'bottoms'

Others came from occupation -- like Potter.

And that's where Smith comes in.

Smith is an Anglo-Saxon word derived from smite (to hit with a hammer) according to The Origin and History of The Name Smith.

Under this vaguer definition, Smiths are blacksmiths, goldsmiths, shoesmiths, and ironsmiths.

And that's a lot of smiths, considering towns would have multiple people doing the same job.

Jump to the colonization of America when Smith really took off.

Some of the first settlers were named Smith, and Native Americans adopted the last name to integrate themselves respectably into society similar to many Jews and Germans who changed their names for the same reasons. Later, slaveowners also gave the name to their slaves and Smith slowly became the most popular English-speaking name.

Interestingly enough, a similar pattern happened in other languages as well.

In Portuguese, Ferreira (derived from ferriero which means blacksmith) is one of their most popular names along with Haddad in Arabic and Kovács in Hungarian.