Surname Distribution Studies

	Sources/Methods/Tools Preface Spatial Analysis Contemporary Geodemographics 1881 Census
	Of Boundaries and maps e-Maps Further info Printed maps
	The study of English local surnames Guppy's 'local' names

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Modern British Surnames

Brief Checklist

Not an exhaustive list; just the basics

Preface

Before plunging enthusiastically into this topic, the following preface of the case against, might be salutary.

A) Variant or Not?

In the 1960's, and using the GRO birth indexes for 1850, Francis Leeson mapped the distribution of his name and what he regarded as its variants -Lee, Lees, Leigh, Leigh, Lea, Ley, Leese, Leeson, Leason. The resulting plots revealed discrete areas, which remained the same even when compared with a 1960's telephone survey..

A reply was made to this article by Dr Reaney, who criticised the distributions on several fronts:-

1) A plot of the modern spelling does not necessarily equate with the original form or distribution "Lee,Lea, Ley, Lay and Leigh are all one surname. They all go back ultimately to OE leah and both surnames and place-names have a variety of forms; the different modern spellings may be partly due to ME grammar, partly due to the local dialect or simply to mere chance...Parish Registers did not begin until long after surnames becam fixed; they are not necessarily proof of the original distribution."
It would have taken maybe just 1 fertile family to migrate in 1530, to give a false impression of the home of a name. Especially if that name did not appear elsewhere in mediaeval documents.

2) A plot cannot be made comparing a root name and its variants, unless one is totally sure that the supposed variant did derive etymologically from the root name. Reaney points out, that in his opinion, Leese (from OE laes- 'pasture') and Leeson - derived from 'son of Lece'- are not variants of the root names Lee, Lea, Ley, Lay and Leigh.
Reaney has subsequently been criticised for over-reliance on etymology, but I think his general points should be borne in mind by anyone plotting any kind of surname distribution.

B) Surname corruption

George Redmond in his study of Yorkshire surnames has shown the amazing variability of surnames.
"In addition to the obvious variations associated with the distortion of vowel sounds and the confusion when pronouncing consonants, the author draws attention to the remarkably high incidence of elision and truncation, as well as the introduction of so-called prosthetic consonants such as Y, W or S to preface some surnames beginning with a vowel. He also notes that the final consonant of a first name may transfer to the surname, citing Thomas Anderson alias Saunderson and John Nellis alias Ellis."
Book Review in The Escutcheon of - Surnames and Genealogy
Dramatic changes could also occur to the final syllable of surnames. For example -Whithalghe/Whitalk/Whitack and Astmough/Astmall/Asman/Asmond. Surnames such as these seem to have had very little stress on the final syllable - it was left to the listener to decide their own interpretation -often in perpetuity.

If you collect the occurrences of a name from say the Hearth Tax, how do you know that the name is what you think it is? -unless one investigate the genealogy of each bearer.
Surname dictionaries will be of little help, because they tend to ignore local corrupted forms. Surname dictionaries concentrate on the earliest form of a name : surname corruption comes much later

As George Redmonds says, each occurrence of a surname should be treated as being unique.

End of the cautionary preface

Snapshots

Part 1 - Contemporary

Some of the potentially really useful national and comprehensive sources are inaccessible to us - such as the National Health Service Central Register at Southport or the Social Security Central Register at Newcastle upon Tyne.

Plotting by postcode

• The ONS has an introduction to postal geography, which it is advisable to read
• Postcode Statististics (usual resident population) for England and Wales are available in the CD-Rom which accompanies Census 2001: Key statistics for postcode sectors in England and Wales / Office for National Statistics. - London : TSO, 2004. - 0116217499
• There are 124 postcode areas in the UK (120 for EWS, + BT (Belfast), JE (Jersey), GY (Guernsey) + IM (Isle of Man)
• The usual resident population for a postcode area varies from 0.04% to over 3%
• There is a published Atlas of Postcodes which defines boundaries, though the finer ones are subject to change
  Also see an online map of Postcode Areas-
  

The following represents a rough guide to the percentages of the Scotland/Wales/England population in each postcode area and the proportion that are aged under 18. Non-mainland postcodes not yet included are for Belfast, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. The figures should be taken as a rough guide.They were compiled prior to the publication of the ONS Census 2001 postcode area figures- but still appear to be in line

Scotland

The population of Scotland at the 2001 Census was 5,062,011.
The population percentage of Scottish postcode areas oF 5,062,011 was about:-

UK Electoral Rolls on CDROM

Pluses

• As near a comprehensive coverage as you will get, listing 42 million names
• Ability to easily extract the number of occurrences of a surname
• Occurrences could be manually mapped using an Atlas of Postcodes

Minuses

• Up to 15% of the possible electorate may not be registered ¹(young people and ethnic minority groups are particularly under-represented)
• Extremely expensive to purchase (something like £3,000 as at 2001)
• Only lists those in the population aged 17 and over

Although the disk is expensive to purchase, there is a fee-based extraction service available from People Finders UK.

UK-INFO Disk

Pluses

• Cheap and cheerful
• Combines both telephone numbers and the Electoral Register
• May be useful just for a casual search alone
• On-line version available

Minuses

• Has been heavily criticised since its data is "of variable vintage" and for the number of missing entries
• It has been estimated that at least 50% of its entries are inaccurate in some way (although the later versions are on first reports much improved in its accuracy)

Up to now, the UK-Info disk could not be recommended for surname distribution analysis, where accuracy in the totality of numbers is so important. The latest disk seems at first to have a much better coverage as a percentage of the population. This is due however to the many duplications in entries caused by Postcode changes. Ensuring that the source is one of 'clean data' is vital in our study.

Telephone Directories

These now come in a variety of formats - Online, Cd-Rom, and printed. However, the telephone directory -whatever its format- suffers from a major proviso -the increasing number of unlisted telephone numbers.

"Although the national average for ex-dir is about 37% the figures do vary enormously between counties, being lowest in northern England and *much* higher in southern England.  So for any surname you will get perhaps 80% listed if they live in a northern county, but less than 50% listed in southern counties, especially East/West Sussex, Hampshire, Surrey, Kent etc.    This imbalance in ex-dir status can be significant in surnames with small numbers, but probably less so with the more common surnames." (John Wynn)
 

The latest online version -PhoneNetUk - is extremely disappointing for our purposes. A regional qualifier is mandatory (under the terms of the licensing authority) , so no national searches are possible. The inclusion of postal codes is erratic, and where they do appear are truncated to the outward code alone.
With the CD, national searches are allowable, but only the first 200 hundred entries are displayed (with full postcode). A tweak is possible to derive statistics of a surname by region, if the number of occurrences exceeds 200. A visit to the local library will probably be required to consult the printed telephone directories.

Colin Rogers has listed the disadvantages of using printed telephone directories:-

• They are not issued simultaneously, and therefore cannot provide a national 'snapshot'
• Boundaries between directory areas are not constant. With the result that an individual's entry may be repeated in more than one directory.

He adds:-

"British Telecom has an Archives and Historical Information Centre at 2-4 Temple Avenue, London EC4Y OHL which is open to the public...it holds an almost complete set of telephone directories from 1879 when the first publically available system was introduced into Great Britain."

Mr Rogers is sceptical about the usefulness of pre-1950 telephone directories for our purposes; the coverage of the population being so small. However, they might be useful as pointers for the study of relatively high frequent names.

National Health Service Central Register [NHSCR]

This database of 60 million names is not available in its entirety - but you can look at an individual frequency. The NHS Central Register is prone to list inflation, and some of the results are surprising, so treat with extreme caution. The whole database does have linguistic possibilities. For a paraphrased potted history of the NHSCR

Survey of Contemporary Surnames

Despite these limitations, a major and significant survey was conducted of the surnames of Britain, using the printed telephone directories 1980-1996. The survey was led by Patrick Hanks and Kate Hardcastle in order to establish those names deemed to be of significance for 'A Dictionary of Surnames' OUP, 1988. The result was 16,000 surnames with a frequency of more than 20 occurrences in any particular directory.
A full listing of the distribution of all the names can be found by following this link

International data sources
The publication of national telephone directories on CD has been used by geneticists to study isonymic rates for individual countries. Onomastic studies based on national datasets are much rarer, but hopefully will increase.

Part 2 - Censuses

1881 Distribution

The 1881 census transcription -despite its known faults- is a marvellous tool for considering the frequency and distribution of names in the late nineteenth century.

The Guild of One-Name Studies has done important work in establishing baselines upon which to commence a study of individual names. The following table of conventions is based on the work of the 1881 Project- co-ordinated by Geoff Riggs

The density is an important indicator. If a surname was evenly distributed it would have a density of 1.
Geoff Riggs shows in his articles that reliance merely on the number of occurrences (s) is a misleading indicator.

For example, below are the 1881 county figures for my own name :-