What is the most common SURNAME in the WikiTree?

Question

Yesterday, I added a few Smiths on a collateral line.

[[Smith-335376|John Wesley Smith (abt.1875-1905)]]

[[Smith-335404|James A Smith (abt.1852-)]] (Wesley's father)

[[Smith-335407|Myrtle May (Smith) Hansen (1902-aft.1971)]] (Wesley's daughter.)

With WikiTree IDs in the 335,000 range, I'm wondering if SMITH is the most common surname on WikiTree?  And how many IDs are added in a 'normal / average' day? (i.e. not during a -thon.)

Answer 1

Based on the data dumps from 10 Mar 2024...

Most Common Last Name at Birth:

1. Unknown - 328,877
2. Smith - 262,776
3. Brown - 137,568
4. Jones - 116,251
5. Johnson - 114,027
6. Williams - 107,369
7. Miller - 92,758
8. Davis - 92,195
9. Wilson - 91,373
10. Taylor - 86,674

And just for fun...

Most common Current Last Name

1. Smith - 259,901
2. Brown - 136,515
3. Johnson - 114,829
4. Jones - 114,258
5. Williams - 107,027
6. Miller - 92,930
7. Davis - 91,241
8. Wilson - 90,768
9. Taylor - 85,694
10. Unknown - 83,895

Most common First Names:

1. John - 1,247,153
2. Mary - 1,149,706
3. William - 1,098,676
4. James - 698,421
5. Elizabeth - 642,192
6. George - 512,579
7. Thomas - 500,969
8. Sarah - 491,699
9. Charles - 386,462
10. Joseph - 371,274

Most common Birth Location:

1. New Zealand - 215,960
2. Ireland - 161,718
3. Pennsylvania, United States - 151,125
4. New York, United States - 148,395
5. Ohio, United States - 143,312
6. Tennessee, United States - 124,448
7. Virginia, United States - 122,750
8. England - 121,296
9. Kentucky, United States - 116,995
10. North Carolina, United States - 111,288

Most common Privacy Level:

1. Open - 30,704,486
2. Private with PB and FT - 766,814
3. Public - 651,608
4. Private with PB - 245,815
5. Private - 234,655
6. Private with PFT - 119,333

Caveats: This does not take spelling variations into account and is only searching publicly available information (Unlisted profiles are excluded from the data dumps) as it is entered in a profile.

Comments

Very interesting data, Steven. Thank you for compiling this.

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Thank you!

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I’m pretty certain I’ve created profiles for all the top 10 surnames! Thanks for the information.

Answer 2

I don't think there is a page that lists most common surnames.

But there was this post in Aug 2022:

• Top 10 surnames:

255,376 Unknown

218,613 Smith

114,463 Brown

 95,040 Jones

 94,367 Johnson

 89,310 Williams

 77,658 Davis

 76,972 Miller

 76,001 Wilson

 70,909 Taylor

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1454475/how-many-surnames-are-in-wikitree 

Answer 3

And this post April 8, 2023:

1,146,197 profiles added since 1 Jan 2023
11,695.88 profiles per day added

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1564530/wikitree-surpasses-34-million-profiles

Answer 4

The Most common birth location really is " " with 5,638,309 Profiles with no location at all 

Comments

Hopefully the location challenge will help reduce that slightly! Can we do it quicker than more are created?