'It's going to take quite a while,' said Dr. Parkin. That will add around 15,000 more names to the dictionary. Although most British last names are surnames, this website generally sticks to the term 'surname' in order to avoid ambiguity. British Family Names in alphabetical order. It is, therefore, not always strictly correct to use the terms 'surname' and 'last name' interchangeably.

Any British family Names that we don’t have, and the customer has an image or description of it we can redraw it for them. The researchers plan to continue their work and are now examining the origins of every name in the country shared by at least 20 people. British Family Names are one of our most popular searches and we have one of the largest collections of British names / coat of arms on file. Peter McClure, the dictionary's chief etymologist, pointed out that the name Levison looks like a Jewish name meaning 'son of Levi.' That's true in some cases, he said, but in northeastern England it's a colloquial development of a Scottish surname, Livingstone, which is based on the town of Livingston, Scotland.

Lee or Li has at least six different origins in a range of Chinese dialects, including 'plum,' 'chestnut,' 'black' 'fortunate' and 'strict.' The study found Patel is a status name deriving from a Hindu and Parsi word for a village headman. The group also examined names that have been found in Britain more recently, such as Patel and Lee, or Li. Instead, they used the name of the house or dynasty to which they belonged. Prior to 1917, the members of the British royal family had no surname. Often, they do not use a last name at all. While some Maudes may be based on ancestors, 'it's much more likely that if you come across someone with the surname Maude they originally had an ancestor from this place in Flintshire,' Dr. Members of the royal family may go by both the name of the royal house and by a surname. That is a combination of the Norman French words for 'mount' and 'haut,' or high mound. The new research has shown that it actually comes from a place in Flintshire, Wales, called Mold, which was recorded as Mohaut in 1297.