A Legacy By Any Other Name

In Act II of Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare writes "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." RIGHT? But our names are one of the very things that define our identity! Our first name anointed on us and our last name bestowed upon us by our parents and potentially passed along for many generations.

I think naming conventions are changing in the 21st century, because we can!  Women are keeping their birth (maiden) names, men are changing their names, people are hyphenating their children's last names and on it goes.  I've heard arguments that this is a bad thing... "how will people know where they come from?". Uh what now?  This is most usually in reference to children of an unmarried couple for which the child carries the mother's last name rather than the father's - cause you know, it's the 21st century and the child needs a name.  

In the old days (as I have mentioned before about 'illegitimate' children) the child would have been disavowed from the actual parents and likely raised as a sibling to the mother...taking on the name of her father.  This truly did make origins of the father near impossible to find - especially before reporting births was mandatory.  These days however, provided the parents are on good terms and no one lies on the birth registration, information will not be lost.  We are living in an age where everything is documented and living on the internet and I think moving forward genealogical research for future generations will be much easier.

/Rant

Yesterday I found an interesting website that ranks surnames by popularity and maps out density of said name.  It is very fun to play with (if you are like me): http://forebears.io/surnames 

I learned my last name is 661 most common name in the world and there are approximately 791 3330 people who bear this name (as of 2014 I believe). The name ranks 47 in Canada with an occurrence of 1 in 1010 people.  Not surprisingly the name is #16 in England, #27 in Australia and #33 in the US.

I think the most uncommon name in my tree is Atyeo. There is an estimated 619 people in the world with this name. In the 1881-1901 period this name in the UK had a mere 68 occurrences, 53 in Somerset (where my Atyeo's are from) and the remaining 15 occurrences in 3 surrounding counties, and 1 further county.  

Density of the name Atyeo, 1881-1901

So, how popular is your last name?