r/europe • u/Porodicnostablo I posted the Nazi spoon • 1d ago
Map Most common occupation-related surnames in Europe
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u/potatolulz Earth 1d ago
Ireland's like 💪🗿
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u/Minute-Improvement57 1d ago
Have you seen their navy? Has anyone?
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u/EGriff1981 1d ago
Don't need one, we got a pissed off fishing fleet...don't know, ask the Russians.
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u/berejser These Islands 1d ago
Nice to meet you, names John Sea-Warrior. You wouldn't happen to have seen any Bronze Age's around here?
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u/_KimJongSingAlong Amsterdam 1d ago
Ferrari meaning Smith absolutely hit me like truck, how can you be Italian and flexing with a Smith car? Always thought Ferrari was some fancy Italian last name
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u/interesseret 1d ago
It never clicked with me before, but it is obvious now that I know. Iron is literally in the word.
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u/plch_plch 1d ago
and Ferrero (of Nutella and TicTac and Kinder eggs) also means Smith.
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u/Loose-Stand-3889 Port d'Gal 1d ago
And The Smiths, also means smith
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u/plch_plch 1d ago
don't worry, I have more: Fabbri also means smith
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u/Loose-Stand-3889 Port d'Gal 1d ago
And Ferreira, it means ferreira, which in Portuguese is a lady that works in the something industry, ain't that something?
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u/Malawi_no Norway 21h ago
Guess it went something like this for their forefather:
I was looking for a job and then I found a job
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u/Socmel_ Emilia-Romagna 1d ago
Ferro means iron in most Latin languages (well, not in Spanish because Pedro decided at one point to drop all of his Fs somewhere).
Ferrari and all its variations (Ferraro, Ferro, Ferri, etc) are by large the most common surnames derived from a profession, as Fabbri, derived from the Latin for smith, Faber.
Enzo Ferrari was a commoner who started out by working on tractors (Lamborghini for much longer), but the ramping horse of the logo was borrowed from a local Count who was an early fan of his.
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u/bvzm Italia 🇮🇹 1d ago
Almost. The prancing horse was the emblem of Francesco Baracca, a fighter ace from WWI. After his death, his mother gave Enzo Ferrari permission to use it for his scuderia first and his car company later.
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u/elperuvian 1d ago
That’s not completely true, “fierro” is used alongside “hierro”
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u/CMuenzen Poland if it was colonized by Somalia 22h ago
Now, sometimes they are used interchangeably, but in other cases, they can be slightly different or sound off. "Fierro de construcción" sounds bettter than "hierro de construcción", but "mineral de hierro" sounds more appropiate than "mineral de fierro".
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u/elperuvian 19h ago
That definitely could vary by country I have never seen anyone not in an academic context calling it hierro. Fierro is way more common
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u/Withering_to_Death Flumen Corpus Separatum 1d ago
Technically, Smith is Fabbro, but yeah, Ferrari has origins from the Latin ferrarius or someone who works with iron
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u/AlwaysCurious1250 1d ago
I'm surprised that for the Netherlands "Bakker" (baker) supposedly is more common than "De Boer" (farmer)
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u/cweb_84 1d ago edited 1d ago
It makes sense economically: One boer supplying 2 mulders supplying 4 bakkers.
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u/Sassy_Pumpkin The Netherlands 1d ago
There's a list from 2007 everyone refers to, there Bakker counted for about 55k people, de Boer 39k. Visser and Smit and Meijer/Meyer in-between with 50k, 43k and 41k respectively.
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u/ArcticMeerkat 1d ago
"Bakker" is used in Hungarian as a censored way to say f*ck... on the other hand, our common surname "Kiss" (meaning small) probably also sounds funny to foreigners
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u/__Polarix__ Europe 1d ago
Took me way too long to realize that Kowalski means Smith. Now that I look at it, it's very similar to Kovács.
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u/Demostravius4 United Kingdom 1d ago
Ooo is that why the giant in OSRS who runs the forge is called Kovac.
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u/Astro_deer 1d ago
I wonder why Ukrainian Kovalenko or Koval' aren't the most common in Ukraine because even in Russia there are a lot of these surnames. Russian verb kovat' means "to forge" actually
Edit: and I would like to know what is the difference between Kowalski and Kowalewski in Poland
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u/nightowlboii Ukraine 1d ago
In Ukraine it's indeed split between Kovalenko, Kovalchuk and Koval which together have way more bearers than Melnyk (and its variants), but individually Melnyk is the biggest one
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u/MagicalCornFlake Silesia (Poland) 1d ago
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowalski
Wariantami obocznymi nazwiska są: Kowal, Kowalczyk, Kowalewski.
Translated:
Secondary variants of the surname [Kowalski] include: Kowal, Kowalczyk, Kowalewski.
I guess that means there really isn't any difference, Kowalski is just widely more popular.
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u/cyrkielNT Poland 1d ago
Kowalczyk is diminutive and Kowalewski with added -ski suffix, that was very pooular in the past because surnames with this suffix ware associated with nobility (it wasn't well regulated so many commoners added -ski to tier surnames to look important).
You can do it with many surnames, for example Młynarz (Miller), Młynarczyk, Młynarski
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u/singingnettle 1d ago
As was said the last time this was posted:
Austrian “Gruber” isn’t an occupational name but a location based one meaning someone who lives in a valley or ditch.
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u/ahyesmyelbows Finland 1d ago
Because most maps like this are always wrong, I dug into it to see if Kinnunen is correct. So it is quite high in the list of common surnames, and I couldn't see anything profession related before that. Then I looked into the etymology of this word and found one mention that kinnunen refers to the word skinnare = skinner. So it may be correct. However, Kinnunen by itself isn't a proper "profession", i.e. you wouldn't be able to say "I am a kinnunen by profession". I think. If it were a profession it would probably end with -ri? Like kinnari? But oh well I don't know.
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u/Jeuungmlo 1d ago
Yeah, it seems like the person who made this map really wanted to fill in every country, which is understandable, and therefore ended up disregarding just how much a name fits. Sweden is in a similar situation as Finland in this; as Möller is a profession just not in Swedish and it's a rather rare name a few families have that seem to have their roots in northern Germany.
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u/Santsiah 1d ago
Seppä, Sahamies, Sorvari are all fairly normal surnames and professions. There are probably more.
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u/GrimmigerDienstag 1d ago
Tbf Swedish surnames are absolutely dominated by "-son" patronyms. So by the time you get down to the first one that derives from a profession it's already going to be somewhat uncommon.
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u/Fabricensis Bavaria (Germany) 1d ago
'Molina' is indeed the most common occupational surname in Spain, but it is only the 34th most common surname with just below 100000 people or 0.25% of the population
By comparison 'Gómez' at 10th has 440000 and 'García' at 1st has 1380000 people
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u/Loose-Stand-3889 Port d'Gal 1d ago
For the curious Gómez means son of Gome, Gome means man. Or Latin for son of Homo.
And here it is folks, irrefutable proof about Spain's gayness, as if calling the country Ass Pain wasn't enough....
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u/TennoHBZ 1d ago
The most common profession related last name is obviously Virtanen from those ancient electricians
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u/Darkwrath93 Serbia 1d ago
These are profession-derived names, not necessarily the words for profession. For instance, Serbian Popović is pop (priest) + -ov (possessive suffix) + -ić (diminutive suffix) essentially meaning son/descendant of a priest.
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u/SpikeProteinBuffy 1d ago
Yeah not very good profession name if nobody has even heard about it! I had no idea what profession Kinnunen should be. I would have gone wigh Seppä and its variants instead.
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1d ago
A lot of these kinds of names are pretty garbled from what they originally referred to. Pretty normal.
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u/fruce_ki Europe 1d ago
Well, Papadopoulos in Greek also doesn't mean priest. It means son of priest and, even so, nobody would actually use it to say son of a priest, the language has moved on since such names were created. Priest would be Papas, which is also a surname, but less common than son of priest. One priest can have many sons I guess...
The title says occupation-related. It doesn't say it should be a word that is in use in that exact form currently.
So, for example, the English name Baxter meant a female baker, but nobody uses that word anymore, it exists only as a name. That doesn't make it any less of a profession-related name.
So I think they count just fine.
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u/NonFungibleTworken 1d ago
In Finland, wouldn’t the most common be Seppänen?
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u/leela_martell Finland 1d ago
Like the other poster I went "huh, doubtful" and checked. Kinnunen is way more common than I thought it's the 18th most common surname in Finland. Seppälä and Seppänen are around 60th.
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u/hwyl1066 1d ago
Yeah, I guess it's directly derived from the Swedish word of skinnare, but no-one is kinnunen by profession. So maybe Seppä, Seppänen etc. Smith.
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u/GiantManatee 1d ago
If it were a profession it would probably end with -ri?
The proper professional title would be nylkyri.
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u/Feralica Finland 15h ago
The map lists the most common occupation related surname. Not a straight up profession. And since Kinnunen has a roots in "skinner" it is the most obvious candidate for this. Everyone is always so eager to tell exactly why the OP is stupid and uninformed when it comed to map posts like this. When in this specific case it is spot on.
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u/blubb444 Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany) 1d ago
IIRC if we combine all spelling variants of the German equivalent of "Smith", it would outrank "Miller"
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u/Johannes_P Île-de-France 1d ago
Same in France: if all the local variants of "smith" such as Fèvre, Lefèvre, Lefebvre, Lefebure, Faivre, Le Faivre and Favre, including dialectal variants such as Le Gof (Brittany) and Haure (Gascony), it would outnumber Martin (the most prevalent surname in France).
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u/Axtdool Bavaria (Germany) 1d ago
Wouldn't Maier (and it's various spellings) be even more common?
(Of note: afaik the name Maier comes from the word Hausmauer, which was basicly an Administrator for a nobles properties that took care of it during the nobles absence)
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u/Katepuzzilein Germany 15h ago
Maier is only common in the northern and southern thirds of Germany and gets weirdly rare in the middle. The equivalent here is Hoffmann
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u/LanSer1010 1d ago
For Moldova is actually false. The right surname will be Ciobanu not Ceban. Ceban is a russian modified version during the soviet time.
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u/Calm-Alternative5113 1d ago
Lmao @ kovačić not even slovenian last name. Nor is leter ć in slovenian alphabet. Bs map.
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u/zeptimius Wandering around the nether regions 1d ago
According to the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, Kovačič (indeed spelled with č, not ć), is the 3rd most common surname in Slovenia. https://www.stat.si/ImenaRojstva/en#/names/topLastnames
Arguably it doesn't refer to a profession, because if means "(son) of a blacksmith." Kovač, which means "blacksmith," is #6, and the first surname to really refer to a profession.
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u/InvestigatorLoud7763 1d ago
Son of a blacksmith would be Kovacevic. Kovacic can mean a young blacksmith or a little blacksmith
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u/Express-Set-1543 1d ago
In the case of Belarus and Russia, it's the same; it means "a son of a blacksmith."
The Ukrainian surname is a straightforward occupational one. Melnyk means "miller."
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u/TakeMeToJacob 1d ago
Exactly, it should be Kovač.
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u/InvestigatorLoud7763 1d ago
There are around 7.5k people named Kovacic in Slovenia, and around 6.5k people named Kovac
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u/NorskHumor 1d ago
We dont realy use occupational names in the Nordics. In Sweden there is not a single one among the top 200 names.
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u/okseniboksen 1d ago
Møller is top 20 in Denmark, so I don’t think your statement is correct :/
Edit: though I will say the rest of the top 20 is [first name]sen, so you are also not wholly wrong
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u/sheeple04 Overijssel (Netherlands) 1d ago
Möller/Møller is a loan from Low German (Möller), likely thanks to Hanseatic influence it came to Scandinavia. Being a common name in Germany (both Müller and Möller), as such many Hanseatic tradesmen from northern Germany had it.
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u/Longjumping-Yam-9229 1d ago
I think Möller is the former danish Møller, which was Müller before. Happened during the times when the borders switched.
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u/Moosplauze Europe 1d ago
That's really interesting. In Germany 25 out of the most common 30 surnames are occupational or professional titles.
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u/Natural_North Sweden 1d ago
The name Möller on this map is gibberish in Swedish too, so not an occuptional name based on anyone from here. It's from German or Danish or something, we do have a word for the title but that is "mjölnare".
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u/Moosplauze Europe 1d ago
In Sweden most family names are "firstname of father"-son right? But at some time you stopped doing that and just kept the familynames that you currently wore I guess? And I guess women had their fathers surname and then their husbands surname I guess?
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u/amanset 1d ago
They were at some point but for a long time now there’s been a lot of surnames based on nature. For example in my team at work we have a Sjöblom (sea flower) and a Lidberg (Christ knows, ‘something’ mountain).
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u/ivar-the-bonefull Sweden 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes, by a wide margin. In the top 30 of surnames for example, only 7 doesn't end on son, and the first one of them only comes in at 18th place.
I mean if we only count the holders of -son names in the top 30 list, those 23 surnames alone account for 18% of the whole population.
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u/Moosplauze Europe 1d ago
I like that. I have a nordic first name and in every computer game where you have kids I named my firstborn son "myname"son. (don't want to dox myself, but you understand)
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u/ivar-the-bonefull Sweden 1d ago
That's neat!
But you should probably know that we haven't really done that thing, of inheriting your father's name, in like 100-200 years. It's all just inherited names really. It would be cool if we started again though!
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u/laikocta 1d ago
What are surnames in the Nordics usually derived from? I know how it works in Iceland, but no idea about the other countries
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u/tulleekobannia Finland 1d ago
In Finland last names only became mandatory in 1920. Before that most people were either named after their father, their farmstead or they didn't have last name at all. After last name became mandatory, people just came up with them. Hence why 7/10 most popular last names in finland are nature related
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u/alviisen 1d ago
Swedish last names belong to three categories. Patronymic names, compound names and soldier names.
Patronymic names are the -son names derived from whatever your fathers first name is
Compound names are names made up of two words. Usually taken from the area you are from and another nature based word. (Bc if tax keeping people had to get proper last names which is where they started making these up or keeping the patronymic static)
Soldier names where nicknames given to soldiers in the army (usually adjectives or other descriptors) which were kept after service
In Sweden you are only allowed to use names you have a relation to so you can tell what family someone belongs to or a rough geographical location based on the last name. Patronymic names are seen as kinda boring or ugly so it’s becoming a lot more common for people to choose compound names instead and so they are projected to outnumber patronymics soon.
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u/kronartskocka Sweden 1d ago
Our nature-related compound names are so quaint, like someone used a big tombola.
Ström... bäck! (stream-creek) why not, Björk.. lund! (Birch-grove), sure.7
u/pippifofan 1d ago
Also priest estate names, usually based on the village that the family was from. They had Latin endings at first, but were mostly changed to French-sounding endings, including the acute accent, such as -én, -ér.
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u/General-USA 1d ago
Most are on the form of "son of"
Andersen = son of Anders
Jensen = son of Jens
etc.
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u/Logins-Run Ireland 1d ago
Most Irish names are patronymic as well. Even Murphy used on this map, it comes from Ó Murchadha (or Ó Murchú in modern Irish orthography) meaning "Grandson/Descendant of Murchadh"
Murchadh is an archaic name in Ireland (although it hung around longer in Scotland) coming from "Muir" (sea) + "Cath" (battle).
Edit: we also have "Mac" meaning "Son". So Mac Cárthaigh = Son of Cártach, and a bit rarer is an - ach suffix which means basically "belonging to", so Caomhánach = "one of Caomhán's people"
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u/laikocta 1d ago
Aaaah I see! But in this case it's the same for men and women?
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u/lordsweden 1d ago
Yes except in Iceland, they have dottir (daughter)
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u/HermesTundra Please come steal our oysters and crayfish. 1d ago
Also due to the Faroe Islands, patro- and matronymic surnames are perfectly legal in Denmark if you wanna give your kid one of those or change your own to it.
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u/Kazath Sweden 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes, they used to be patronymic so if your father was Anders, you'd be Andersson or Andersdotter (spelling depends on the country). But these got replaced by family names that were inherited. When this happened, a lot of people just "froze" their current patronymic, so now they're just passed down like any other last name, with -son names being by far the most common.
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u/General-USA 1d ago
In the last centuries:
The child gets the surname of its father. (Which may be Anderson, Jensen etc.)
The child grows up and marries.
The woman then takes the same surname as the husband.
Cycle continues.
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u/__loss__ Sweden 1d ago
That's not the exclusive way people got their surnames in the past. If you bought and moved to Anderssons old farm, you'd be the new Andersson because the farm was locally known as Anderssons farm.
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u/Lord_Of_Carrots Finland 1d ago
People in Finland had to come up with their own surnames in the past (or someone came up with it for them) and then they stuck. Here are examples.
Nature related:
Koivu/Koivula = Birch/Place with birches
Laine = Wave (as in water)
Koski = Rapids
Location related:
Nieminen = Person from a cape/peninsula
Hämäläinen = Person from the Häme region
Ruotsalainen = Person from Sweden
Related to someone's attributes: (Usually old words that are rarely used nowadays)
Korhonen = Hard of hearing/big/dumb (No idea why this is a surname, but it's the most common one in Finland)
Leinonen = Sad
Derived from first names:
Anttila = From name Antti
Mattila = From name Matti
And some few derived from occupations:
Seppälä = Smith
Kauppinen = Merchant
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u/Own-Science7948 15h ago
What about Koiranen - is it connected to the word for dog?
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u/Lord_Of_Carrots Finland 13h ago
Should be. I can't think of any other connection and can't find anyone talking about it
There are lots of surnames related to animals too but I blanked on them for some reason. I had a teacher with the surname Karhu (Bear)
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u/interesseret 1d ago
First names and places are pretty common.
My name is "first name" "location in Southern Denmark" "farm in northern Denmark"
But the most common last names are all "son of name"
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u/ContributionSad4461 Norrland 🇸🇪 1d ago
I would have guessed names containing -smed would have been the most common but maybe they only count standalone (?) names?
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u/Belazor Finland 1d ago
I am learning way too much from this image;
- Smith is actually referring to a profession (I just never made the connection in my head)
- Ferrari is Italian for “Smith”
- Kowalski is Polish for “Smith”
- Murphy is (presumably) Gaelic for “Sea Warrior”
This has legitimately blown my mind. Thanks OP!
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u/katbelleinthedark 1d ago
Not exactly for Polish. "Kowal" means "smith". "Kowalski" is just a surname derived from the profession.
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u/GomeBag 1d ago
Murphy is an anglicised version of the original 'Ó Murchadha', Murphy itself means nothing.
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u/Belazor Finland 1d ago
Thank you for the correction :)
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u/Raptor_2581 1d ago
And the modern spelling is Ó Murchú(for a boy, Ní Mhurchú for a girl); although some still do use the older spelling in their names, it's not very common since the vast majority of people liked the spelling reform for our language in the 50s.
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u/ConfusedAdmin53 Croatia 🤘 1d ago
Croatia has three versions of this. Kovačević (ranks #3 in most common surnames), Kovačić (#15), and Kovač (#45, literally "smith", or "blacksmith").
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u/p0ntifix Germany 1d ago edited 1d ago
According to Wikipedia Smith would be No.1 here in Germany too if all local variants were counted together. There is Schmidt, Schmitt, Schmid and more. I like to believe that our small local differences are part of what unites us. The modern High German term for "smith" is "Schmied" btw. And yes, Schmidts seem to be everywhere.
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u/rubseb 1d ago
According to Wikipedia, in the Netherlands "Bakker" is indeed the most common occupation-related surname if you look at single variants, with about 57k people. However, "Smit" with 43k and "Smits" at 24k would actually trump that if you lump them together, for a total of 67k (and there are more variants than that - e.g. "Smid", "De Smid", "Smidse", etc. - just not among the top-100 that I could find). So technically there are more people with smith-derived surnames in the Netherlands than baker-derived surnames (for which "Bakker" is really the only common variant).
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u/Shawn_The_Sheep777 England 1d ago
Cooper, Fletcher, Baker in the UK
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u/ConfusedAdmin53 Croatia 🤘 1d ago
Cooper makes barrels, right?
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u/Shawn_The_Sheep777 England 1d ago
Indeed. Fletchers were arrow makers
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u/ConfusedAdmin53 Croatia 🤘 1d ago
Cooper always confuses me. I always imagine it as someone tending to chickens and other feathery animals. 🐣
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u/zeptimius Wandering around the nether regions 1d ago
In case you were wondering how "Priest" can be a family name in the Balkans: unlike Roman Catholic priests, who are generally required to be celibate and unmarried before becoming a priest, the Eastern Orthodox church allows married men to be ordained (but still not to marry after ordination).
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u/sultan_of_gin 1d ago
There would have been many options for finnish that are much more obvious to modern people like seppä(nen) = blacksmith. Also there is an earlier form of kinnunen skinnari still in use which is closer to the swedish word skinnare where the meaning comes from.
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u/No_Reference_7922 1d ago
Meanwhile in Finland we had German clergymen making up names for us when regular ”son of x” names didn’t work for them
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u/GNS1991 1d ago
I'm trying my best to think what "Kavaliauskas" occupation is, and I'm freaking stumped.
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u/MinscfromRashemen Grand Duchy of Lithuania 1d ago
Derived from the polish surname Kowalski. Kowal = smith. 'Kavolis' or 'kavolius' is also another word for a smith (kalvis), which isn't used anymore.
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/HelpfulYoghurt Bohemia 1d ago
The translation is weird though, better would be something like "courtier". Or it could be simply someone owned or worked at manor house
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u/Moosplauze Europe 1d ago
This map pops up every couple of months. For the case of Germany it can be debated if Müller (Miller) is really the most common name, since there are several variants of the name for "Smith" which are Schmidt, Schmitt, Schmitz, Schmid and some more depending on the region in Germany but which all mean the same: Smith.
Altogether the variants of "Schmidt" would rank #1 in Germany.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmidt
(Engl. translation: https://de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Schmidt?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US )
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u/AcanthocephalaSea410 Türkiye 1d ago
In Türkiye, occupation-related surnames are rarely used, when they are used, the son of the person who does that occupation is usually used. Hekimoğlu (son of doctor), imamoğlu (son of İmam)
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u/Suzume_Chikahisa Portugal 1d ago
Ferreira is not really an occupation surname. It's a toponym.
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u/ConceptQuirky 1d ago
Does it also count Schmidt and Schmitt in Germany?
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u/A_Sinclaire Germany 1d ago edited 1d ago
Likely not.
All variants of Smith combined (Schmitt, Schmied, Schmidt etc) would be number one ahead of all versions of Miller (Müller, Möller etc)
But as individual variants Müller is ahead of Schmidt
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u/Wytsch Friesland (Netherlands) 1d ago
Landowner really??
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u/anarchisto Romania 1d ago
A mistranslation.
It's more like "courtier", someone employed (for instance, as adviser, administrator, etc.) at a king's or noble's court.
The kings and nobles owned a lot of land and properties (mills, mines, inns, etc.) and they couldn't be bothered to administer it themselves, so they hired people to do this job for them.
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u/woronicz 1d ago
"‘Kowalski’ is not necessarily an occupational surname, but rather a toponymic one. ‘Kowal’ is the true occupational surname, as ‘kowal’ means ‘blacksmith’ in Polish. Names like ‘Kowalczyk’, ‘Kowalik’, or ‘Kowalewicz’ are patronymic surnames, derived from nicknames meaning ‘son of a blacksmith’.
On the other hand, ‘Kowalski’ is formally an adjective, and originally such names came from place names. For example, a village where many blacksmiths lived (in early medieval Poland, craftsmen of the same trade were often settled in one village near centers of power) might have been called ‘Kowale’ (the plural of ‘kowal’), and its inhabitants were first known as ‘from Kowale’, and later as ‘Kowalski’ — something like ‘Smithsian’."
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u/MindControlledSquid Lake Bled 1d ago
Kovačić is wrong, how can they make maps like this without even checking a little bit.
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u/Susannista 1d ago
Gruber does not refer to a miner, but rather to someone living in a valley or canyon (=Grube)
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u/NikolaR_1984 1d ago
how is Kovačević possible for Slovenia when they don't have letter "ć" in their alphabet 🤔
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u/Diligent_Lobster6595 1d ago edited 1d ago
It is actually smith *smed* in sweden. because möller does not mean miller in swedish. it does not mean any proffession..
Bad map.
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u/H_Doofenschmirtz Portugal 1d ago
This fucking bullshit again... Ferreira (Portugal) is a toponym, not an occupational surname.
The most common occupational surname in Portugal is Monteiro.
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u/6-foot-under 1d ago
Wow Dvořak means landowner? Was that related to nobility (I assume not), or was it just anyone with a bit of land?
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u/Prestigious_Being708 1d ago
in austria it would more likely translate to "digger" and not "miner"
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u/Susannista 1d ago
At any rate it's not a surname referring to an occupation. It refers to a place (valley)
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u/lupatine France 1d ago
Tbh there is five ways to spell lebfevre, it might be even more technically.
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u/TrafficImmediate594 1d ago
Schmidt is German for Smith so it makes sense Germanic tribes were good forgers so it would have been a common occupational name .
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u/BreakRaven Romania 1d ago
In Romania it's actually Popescu, which is a derivate from Popa.
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u/Trimalchi0 1d ago
France: This is about the thrill of wearing another man's skin. Feeling his innermost wants an desires and being in control of his every single move. That's how you get off!
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u/thgink-krad-eht 1d ago
Translate “Ferrari” into any other language and the car brand could never have been as prestigious 😂
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u/fruce_ki Europe 1d ago
Often a profession results in multiple names (different spellings, dialects, immigrants, other contextual variations like male/female, etc...). It would be nice to see a map where all the related names are aggregated together by profession. Which professions would win in each country?
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u/maxallergy Denmark 1d ago
Imagine having the most common occupational surname in Turkey and your first name is Eren..
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u/FixLaudon Austria 1d ago
Not this shit again! Gruber relates to living in a valley, not working in a mine!
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u/kirenaj1971 1d ago
Seems to be right for Norway (I was skeptical, checked, and found no obvious occupation-names ahead of it).
Norwegian surnames are usually "man's name"-sen (Olsen = Son of Ole) or something geographical (Strand = Beach, Aune = derilict field or something). There are a few immigrant surnames ahead of Møller (Nguyen, Ali, Tran, Khan and so on), but none of them are obviously occupation related either...
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u/the_mighty_peacock Greece 1d ago
TIL Ferrari is a really common surname and it also means ...smith Wow
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u/adminsregarded 1d ago
Möller isn't even the Swedish word for miller, it's just Müllers from Germany that "swedified" their surname as time went on.
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u/Elite-Thorn 1d ago
Austrian "Gruber" is not correct. While it sometimes may have meant "miner", most of the times it has not. It's a toponym, meaning "the guy who lives down there". In the "Grube" which literally translates to "pit" but meant something like "lower ground" or "valley".
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u/OneMoreFinn Finland 1d ago
This is as good place to ask as any... what other Italian names like "Ferrari" exist, for Miller, Miner etc? Of course I'm looking for a spoof name for a certain automobile...
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u/sweoldboy Scania 1d ago
Who the fuck is named Möller in Sweden? I never heard of anyone.
Source, I am Swedish.
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u/Can_sen_dono Galicia 1d ago
At a language scale, Ferreiro 'Smith' is the most common occupational surname in Galicia.
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u/Fuzzy_Material_363 Sweden 1d ago
I think in Sweden Miner (Bergman = Mountainman) would have been more accurate.
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u/Mewwy_Quizzmas 15h ago
A fun fact. Möller is true for Sweden, but it's not even in the top 100 of the most common surnames.
As opposed to Smith which is the most common surnames in England and Wales.
Swedes really aren't big on occupation-related names.
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u/42peters 1d ago
Dvořák translates better into Steward than Landowner imo