Here’s a map of the surname ‘Smith’ in various European languages. Who would have figured that a high-brow Italian car, a French philosopher, and Michael Richards’ character in the 80s Weird Al movie “UHF” had something in common?

40 comments

  2. The surname “Кузнецов (Kuznetsov), Кузнецова (Kuznetsova)” is widespread in Russia. This also means “Smith’s”

  4. in the German regions most people were just named by their profession: Müller=miller, Schmidt=smith, Schneider=tailor, Fischer=fisherman, Meyer=farmer, Weber=weaver, Wagner=wainwright, Schulz=constable, Becker=baker

  5. Nutella is made by Ferrero, which is also a surname that means smith. There are also various other famous Ferrari companies in Italy, including winemakers (which now sponsors F1 podium sparkly wine, with nice meme potential), cheesemakers and a cured meat company.

  6. For Greece it should be Sideras (Σιδεράς). It’s the more commonly used synonym and there are probably zero people named Sidiroyrgos anyway.

  7. Finland is missing Seppä (literally smith) and perhaps Seppälä (the place of the smith). Seppänen is a diminutive form of seppä, like “Aww that cute little smith.”

  8. I don’t think Σιδηρουργός exists as a surname in Greek. The related surnames are Σιδεράς, Σιδηράς, Σιδέρης.

  10. pretty sure in Dutch it would also be Smet, Smed, De Smet, De Smed. Or even Smedt or De Smedt.

    It’s “de smid werkt in de smederij” so I’m 99% sure the old Dutch word is “smed”

    //edit spelling

  12. For Finland for some reason the diminutive form ’seppänen’ is mentioned, while ’seppä’ is both a valid surname and means ’smith’ even now and not just proto-fennic.

    ’Seppänen’ may also mean someone who lives in the Seppä household.

  13. Italian *Ferrari* and its variations (most common names include *Ferri*, *Ferro*, *Ferrario*, *Ferrero*, *Ferreri*, *Ferrante*…) is more like “ironsmith”. “Smith” would be closer to *Fabbri* which is also a very common surname in Italy.

  15. This map severely under-represents the Kuznetsov (Kuznetsova) surname that is approx. 5 times (as of 2021) more popular than Kovalyov in Russia. Ever heard of the economist Simon Smith Kuznets? This is that root. You could have at least checked the relative incidence. You could have asked other redditors because, judging by the number of comments suggesting corrections, there are many more corrections needed for a better picture.

  16. Looks like smiths had tonns of children in medieval times, i dont see any people with “peasant” surname in my country, but plenty of “smiths” 😀

  17. Fun fact – a smith is “kalējs” in Latvian, however, the place he works in is “smēde”. I guess they couldn’t decide which influence to work on, so they took both.

  18. Really interesting! I knew Lefebvre as a surname but I never knew what it meant.

    I decided to look up Welsh as it’s not on the map and it’s Gof close to the Breton.
    I imagined that the Cornish of word would be similar and I found a suggestion of Angoff or Engoff.

  19. As a Ferreira myself, I always ‘translate’ my name when playing games like Football Manager and having a manager of a different nationality. I actually used Ferrari in Italy as a joke, I had no idea it was correct.

  20. Cornwall has “Gove” or “Angove” (from *an gov* “the smith”, with the definite article).

    See, for example, Michael Gove.

  24. While smith is smed in Norwegian, I’ve never heard anyone with that surname. I never heard about any profession surnames in Norway. Its almost always a place or old patriarchal surnames.

  25. Schmied would be the literal translation in German

    Schmidt, Schmit(t), Schmid, Schmitz, Schmitke, Schmidl are variations on the original job title

  26. Herrera (herrero in femenine) is more common than Herrero

    ​

    There are 144634 persons with the surname Herrera

    There are 113170 persons with the surname Herrero

  27. In Basque I would say that “errementari” (wich actually comes from Latin “ferramentarium”) is more common. In fact, “arotz” would be normally used for “carpenter” and not “smith”, and it is only only used as such in Iparralde.

    A more traditional word would be the ones formed with the root “burdin” (iron), like “burdigin”, “burdinlari” or “burdingile”.

  29. Σιδηράς/Σιδεράς (Sidirás/Siderás) is the more common version of it found as a last name in Greek.

  31. In Finnish Smith is just Seppä (also a surname) while Seppänen is the diminutive form. Then there’s Rautio (from rauta = iron) which is the archaic form of smith, and its’ diminutive Rautiainen. Also Seppo/Sepponen are last names meaning smith in a bit archaic way, but Seppo is also a used as a first name.

  35. in the Ukrainian language it should be:
    central Ukrainian surname – Коваль
    western – Ковальчук
    eastern – Коваленко

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