European Surname Typology Project

International audienceA European project on the typology of surnames has been launched recently with the aim to describe its geographical distribution in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg. This distribution has typical patterns both within and between countries. It is assumed that these patterns can be explained by factors acting on the naming system established around the XIIIth century, among them linguistic diversity, political and religious influences, and social structure. Studying the current geographical distribution of the various categories of surnames at a European scale may help to clarify how surnames and their categories have been introduced in Europe and how they dispersed over time. The 100 most frequent surnames were collected in each administrative area (NUTS3 of the European nomenclature of territorial units for statistics) of the participating countries. Each name was classified into one or more of the following elementary categories: (1) Patronymical, (2) Occupational, Title or Dignity, (3) Nickname or personal quality, (4) Geographical (address) Topological or Ethnic names (origin)