Top 50 English/Welsh Names Ever wondered if your ancestors' names were popular in early Victorian Britain 150 years ago? Mark Antony Lever's 'A Dictionary of the Family Names of the United Kingdom' was published by John Russell Smith, London, in 1860. In Lever's book he quotes the number of different surnames existing within England and Wales (i.e. excluding Scotland and Ireland) as in excess of 30,000. He then reproduces statistics from a report of Her Majesty's Registrar-General that depict the 50 most common surnames in England and Wales. The following table is derived from 9 quarterly indexes of births, 8 of deaths and 8 of marriages extracted from the official indexes of 1838, 1851 and 1853. The results were accepted as statistically correct when arranged against different indexes. It should be noted that the 50 names embrace approximately 18 out of every 100 registered and that one in 28 of the whole population in the mid-19th century would answer to the name of Smith Jones or Williams. Surname No. of Entries Surname No. of Entries 1 SMITH 33,557 26 HARRIS 7,042 2 JONES 33,941 27 CLARK 6,920 3 WILLIAMS 21,936 28 COOPER 6,742 4 TAYLOR 16,775 29 HARRISON 6,399 5 DAVIES 14,983 30 DAVIS 6,205 6 BROWN 14,346 31 WARD 6,084 7 THOMAS 13,017 32 BAKER 6,013 8 EVANS 12,555 33 MARTIN 5,893 9 ROBERTS 10,617 34 MORRIS 5,888 10 JOHNSON 9,468 35 JAMES 5,755 11 ROBINSON 9,045 36 MORGAN 5,691 12 WILSON 8,917 37 KING 5,661 13 WRIGHT 8,476 38 ALLEN 5,468 14 WOOD 8,238 39 CLARKE 5,309 15 HALL 8,188 40 COOK 5,300 16 WALKER 8,088 41 MOORE 5,269 17 HUGHES 8,010 42 PARKER 5,230 18 GREEN 7,996 43 PRICE 5,219 19 LEWIS 7,959 44 PHILLIPS 5,124 20 EDWARDS 7,916 45 WATSON 4,771 21 THOMPSON 7,839 46 SHAW 4,759 22 WHITE 7,808 47 LEE 4,731 23 JACKSON 7,659 48 BENNETT 4,671 24 TURNER 7,549 49 CARTER 4,648 25 HILL 7,192 50 GRIFFITHS 4,639 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.351 / Virus Database: 197 - Release Date: 19/04/02