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Lists of the most common surnames by continent: Lists of most common surnames in African countries; Lists of most common surnames in Asian countries; Lists of most common surnames in European countries; Lists of most common surnames in North American countries; Lists of most common surnames in Oceanian countries
The top ten surnames cover about 20% of the population, with important geographical differences. The regional distribution of surnames within Spain was homogenized mostly through internal migrations, especially since 1950. Names typical of the old crown of Castile have become the most common all over
Given names used by African-American people are often invented or creatively-spelled variants of more traditional names. Some names are created using syllables; for example, the prefixes La- or De- and the suffixes -ique or -isha. Also, punctuation marks such as apostrophes and dashes are sometimes used, though infrequent. [11]
Several surnames have multiple spellings; this is sometimes due to unrelated families bearing the same surname. A single surname in either language may have multiple translations in the other. In some English translations of the names, the M(a)c- prefix may be omitted in the English, e.g. Bain vs MacBain, Cowan vs MacCowan, Ritchie vs MacRitchie.
For singular forms, the modern possessive or genitive inflection is a survival from certain genitive inflections in Old English, for which the apostrophe originally marked the loss of the old "e" (for example, lambes became lamb's). Its use for indicating plural "possessive" forms was not standard before the middle of the 19th century.
Names that originate as surnames typically start out their lifespan as androgynous names before developing a common usage as either a masculine name or a feminine name. Tyler and Taylor had approximately the same usage for both boys and girls when they came onto the charts before diverging. Tyler is now typically given to boys while Taylor is ...
Another example is last names that indicate relation to religious groups such as Zoroastrian (e.g. Goshtaspi, Namiranian, Azargoshasp), Jewish (e.g. Yaghubian [Jacobean], Hayyem [Life], Shaul [Saul]) or Muslim (e.g. Alavi, Islamnia, Montazeri) Last names are arbitrary; their holder need not to have any relation with their meaning.
-wala, -wallah, wali, vala, vali (Hindustani, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi) denotes the occupation or place of origin (Occupation example: Batliwala – one who deals with bottles. Place example: Suratwala – one from Surat) [citation needed]-wan (Indonesian) denotes a male name [citation needed]-wati (Indonesian) denotes a female name [citation ...