New Web Site Maps Surnames Worldwide

We all want to know where our ancestors came from but many of us are also curious as to where our distant relatives now live. A new web site can provide many such clues, if not definitive answers.

The Public Profiler site plots eight million last names using data from electoral rolls and phone directories. The site covers 300 million people in 26 countries, showing the origins of names and where families have moved to. The site also reveals which of the five million first names (forenames) are most closely associated with different surnames and lists the top regions and cities for each surname.

The Public Profiler web site was developed by a team of geographers from University College London. Professor Paul Longley, one of the researchers, said: "The information is not just historical but geographical. We can link names to places - a name is now not just a statement of who you are but where you are."

Most surnames originated in specific places in the world and remain most frequent in those areas, but have often spread to other countries because of migration, the research shows.

I found the site easy to use. Enter a surname and see where others of that name are located around the world. Dots are shown on a world map is shown with each dot representing a concentration of people with that name. The more unusual name, the better it works.

You do need to have JavaScript enabled on your browser and a recent version of Flash Player installed on your computer to see the maps. It works well on both Windows and Macintosh systems.

When I visited the site, I found it to be very, very slow. It seems that the site is brand new and is apparently overwhelmed by users. It is far more popular than the creators expected and  the web server it runs on was not designed to handle the heavy load. I received several errors of “Error..Database is busy..“ when using it. If you encounter the same, you might leave and then try again in a few hours or even in a few days.

To try the Public Profiler site, go to http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames.

Comments

[steve]

Website is down, looks like it couldn't handle much user load.

[Carol Lovitt]

Thank you so much for this web site. Had no problems getting on and it is great. Found every name I typed in and some are pretty weird names.
Carol

[Gene]

Fun and has great potential. However
I looked at "Cleland" -- The map showed very high concentration in Italy - but Italy was not even listed on the extended numerical list of concentrations. Also, the numerical list showed high concentrations in Australia and New Zeeland - but these areas were not colored on the map.
Even a new site should try to be internally consistent.

[Leonard]

The website returned an Error..Database is busy..
Most of the tabs on the website returned Page under development.

[Jea]

I don't understand why the numerical list doesn't match the color results. I found countries at the top of the numerical FPM list were often colored yellow or pale green.

[Mildred Clough]

I found this website fascinating but the colors did not go with the text. Highlighted states and/or countries were not the ones listed with the most population in the text.

[JALF]

I agree with Jea -the color info on the map was totally inconsistent with the numerical data when I put in my unusual surname.

[Doris]

Sorry, stupid question: What does fpm stand for? The closest I can come is "Full Population Model," but I still don't know what it means. (Families per million, maybe?)

[Patricia C-W]

In the FAQ for the website it says "FPM" means "Frequency per Million".

I looked up an unusual name and found consistency in both the colors and the map frequency. Thanks for letting us know about this site!

[Merna]

Doris, "FPM" means 'frequency per million'. If you pause your mouse over the term, you'll get the 'translation'.

[Suzia]

Thanks Dick! What an interesting resource!

FPM = Frequency Per Million
(based on the area population, not the population represented in the entire database).

See the FAQ page for a list of the 26 countries with their geographic divisions. Hopefully other countries can be added later. I had to remind myself that central and eastern Europeans are much more likely to have cell phones than land lines, hence public directories are not very representative of surname distribution.

[DrShowMe]

This is a fascinating concept and potentially useful ... however, I found its accuracy highly questionable. I entered my fairly unusual surname. I am nearly certain there are only two distinct families with that name in the U.S. [None of those I know researching this name have been able to connect the two families, though there are enough similarities to be convinced they connect somewhere.] I know all with that name residing in Missouri over the last many years. Per the FAQs on the site:

"All our names and location data are derived from publicly available telephone directories or national electoral registers, sourced for the period 2000-2005."

The result of the search gave 5.78 fpm for Missouri - which should translate to a headcount somewhat North of 30 people. The most liberal count I can get for this name in Missouri during that period is less than 20. This suggests to me that the sources being used on the site have overlaps - i.e., the same individual on more than one list. Further, the third name on the top cities list is Bridgeton Missouri. There have not been more than two people with this name living in that city since 1987 and none in the time period indicated in the FAQ.

So, while the concept is nice, I would say the results should be taken with much more than a grain of salt.

[Roxanna Deane]

Thanks for this information. I have a surname that I always thought had been changed. When I typed it in there were NO hits. This convinced me that I should concentrate on an alternative spelling. I typed in my best guess and found that name in Switzerland and Germany, which match census records. This gave me hope that I am on the right track.

[Nora]

I found this site interesting though misleading. For the United States, the info for my surname was not correct as I have documented the frequency and it leaves out the highest state where they are.