Why Do So Many People Have the Same Last Name?

Want a specific history topic covered? Your idea gets picked when you donate on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/iammrbeat
Mr. Beat's band: http://electricneedleroom.net/
Mr. Beat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/beatmastermatt

Why are there so many of the same surnames? Why do some surnames go extinct? Why do we call surnames "last names?" Mr. Beat, who has a strange last name, answers these questions in this video. Oh, and Jabril helps out.
Check out his video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y71ZshVlyrY

Music by Drew Gerber. Produced by Matt Beat. All images found in the public domain, used under fair use guidelines, or original content from Matt Beat.

Fair use photo credits:
Michael Rivera
Gage Skidmore
Tanner Morrow

How rare is your surname? Find out here:
http://forebears.io/surnames
http://howmanyofme.com/

Check out the book: What's in a Surname?: A Journey from Abercrombie to Zwicker
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CQ1DL7K/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00CQ1DL7K&linkCode=as2&tag=iammrbeat-20&linkId=8488d3e55e75977db1d2b8737bb503b6

Sources:
http://howmanyofme.com/
http://www.pbs.org/pov/apps/thesweetestsound/popularity-index/
http://forebears.io/surnames
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mg7qwb/heres-a-global-heatmap-of-people-with-your-last-name
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/nguyen-name-common-vietnam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p-Jdjo7sSQ
https://surnames.behindthename.com/top/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1jn623/why_is_smith_the_most_common_surname/
https://www.reference.com/education/10-common-last-names-world-ff45abb098a0454b
http://www.historytoday.com/cm-matthews/surnames-occupation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton%E2%80%93Watson_process

I’m Mr. Beat. Some people don’t believe me when I tell them that’s really my last name. Apparently it’s really rare. Only 422 other people living in the United States share my last name. Only 3,661 other people living in the entire world share my last name.

According to the website Forebears, not four bears, Forebears, Beat is the 111,426th most popular surname in the world. It’s most popular in Cameroon, believe it or not. By the way, surname, aka “family name” is a much more accurate way to describe it. A surname is basically the name passed down from generation to generation. It’s inaccurate to call it a “last name” everywhere because in many countries the surname is said first.

So why is my surname so rare? Hold up, the better question is why so many many people have the SAME last name. There are so many names to choose from, yet we have so many Johnsons. (I’m telling you, he should just change his surname to The Rock). Let’s look at Smith, the most popular last name in the United States. Here’s my friend Kevin Smith. No, not THAT Kevin Smith. No, not THAT Kevin Smith. No no no. Not that one! Yes, that Kevin Smith. Geez. So yeah, my friend’s name is so common that are 23 Kevin Smiths currently classified as “notable people” on Wikipedia. Odds are, there’s a Kevin Smith in the town you currently live in. Why is my friend’s name so common? First of all, Kevin was the 24th most popular boys name the year he was born, so that increased the number out there. But this video is about surnames. Smith is so common because many surnames came from what people did for a living. Smith is an occupational name, named after working with metal, and because metal work jobs historically have existed a lot of places and because the occupation has historically been so important, the name spread.

Ok, so that explains Smith, but what about Li or Gonzalez or Zhang or Nguyen or Hernandez? Huh Mr. Smarty Pants? Oops, wrong surname. I mean, huh Mr. Beat?

Well let’s take Nguyen. Between 30 to 40 percent of the entire country of Vietnam have the last name Nguyen. To put that in perspective, less than 1 percent of Americans have the last name Smith. Why Nguyen?

Well, for generations, Vietnam was just minding its own business, when China decides to be all imperialistic on them and take over. At the time of the beginning of Chinese imperialism, the Vietnamese did not have surnames. China literally gave them surnames so that it would be easier to keep track of them. They gave many of them Nguyen, a Chinese name. You saw this with other imperialist powers around the world. That’s why most Filipinos have Spanish names, for example. This can even be extended to slavery. Many African Americans have surnames from the owners of their slave ancestors. Well that’s pretty messed up. Geez.

In some cases, people changed their surnames so they wouldn’t get killed. In other cases, people changed their surname, because they weren’t particularly attached to the old one so they took the one of someone they admired. This also explains why there are so many Nguyens. Still, I feel like there is some important information missing here.

Видео Why Do So Many People Have the Same Last Name? канала Mr. Beat