surnames

France is the country with the most diversity of surnames in Europe along with Italy. According to the list of surnames in France on Filae.com, there are 1.3 million different surnames in France today, although a substantial percentage are foreign names. In fact, in this list over 800,000...

Back in the day it wasn't such big topic, as it was logical that once two people marry they will stay together forever mostly. But in modern age due to some elements we can see mostly in western society, that is no longer true, and probably everybody of us knows at least one person who is...

I was wondering if any of the ancient Roman patrician and plebeian families still had descendants carrying their surnames today. I went to Cognomix, and searched for what the modern surnames would sound like without the -us ending. It turns out that not only most of the famous ancient surnames...

Does anyone know anything about the surname Quezel, especially in Sorrento (or southern Italy in general)? It seems to be from the Occitan language, but then it's most common in Savoy, which is Arpitan and not Occitan. Why would a Savoyard or Occitan family move to that part of Italy, is there...

Using surname projects at FamilyTreeDNA, I have listed the dominant Y-DNA haplogroup for a series of common Jewish family names. Common alternative spellings are mentioned in brackets. Haplogroups that make up at least 50% of the total surnames in the project are in bold. Biblical lineages -...

One of the biggest cultural differences between the USA and Europe is the increasingly common use of patronyms as given names in American society, especially for boys/men. I had a look at the top 100 baby names in the USA in 2012 and found 33 boy names that were based on family names - one third...