The Great Canadian Surname Thread

[Acajack]

OK, just wondering about what the most common surnames in your provinces, regions or cities. Actual data is welcome, but also just your impressions of which names are common could be fun as well.

Also, are there any really unique or unexpected surnames that can be found in your area? Or areas that you know of.

[Xelebes]

In the Edmonton area, I've seen a lot of Doucettes and Melnyks.

My last name is unique to Alberta. The Siebold (a mispelling of Seybold) is pronounced as Seybold (rhymes with eyeballed) and is the only clan of Siebolds to pronounce it this way. The Siebolds in the US, Germany and BC pronounce it in the traditional fashion (rhymes with e-balled.)

[SignalHillHiker]

Most surnames in Newfoundland and Labrador are, of course, English, Irish, French, Scottish, Spanish or Welsh - and probably in that order of prevalence.

In the 2001 census, Newfoundlanders identified their ethnicity (and this presumably suggests a little something about the dominance of which surnames) as follows:

53%: Canadian
39%: Irish
20% English
6%: Scottish
5%: French
3%: North American Indian
1% and lower, in order: Inuit, German, Metis, Newfoundlander, Welsh, Dutch, Italian, Norwegian, Chinese, American, East Indian, British, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Lebanese, Danish, Jewish, Filipino, Russian, Greek, Hungarian, Austrian, African, Egyptian, Finnish, Black, Jamaican, Acadian, Arab, Belgian, Czech, Romanian, and South African.

In St. John's, as an old city, surnames come with a lot of baggage. Older people can sometimes guess your surname just by looking at you. And they can definitely tell where you're from. As soon as I saw my surname, anyone older than 40 responds with, "[Town A] or [Town B]?", their way of checking which of the two main, but unrelated, families with my surname that I belong to.

Reading through a list of the most common names in N.L. cemeteries, some that jump out at me as common in my daily life include:

Power, Walsh, King, Ryan, Penney, Dawe, Sheppard, Williams, Roberts, Noseworthy, Bennett, Kennedy, Squires, Abbott, Rose, Moore, Barnes, Bartlett, Andrews, McCarthy, Doyle, Hillier, Dwyer, Pittman, Conway, Crocker.

[begratto]

On Montreal's island, obviously French surnames are the the most common, Tremblay being #1. But there are two notables exceptions in the top ten, Nguyen (apparently 40% of people of Vietnamese origins living abroad are called "Nguyen") and Patel.

The top ten goes as follows:

Tremblay
Nguyen
Gagnon
Roy
Patel
Côté
Gauthier
Bouchard
Morin
Leblanc


The only non-French surnames in Montreal's top 50 are Tran (#24) and Smith (#41).

Source: Institut de la statistique du Québec, Les noms de famille au Québec : aspects statistiques et distribution spatiale (http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/publications/demograp/noms_famille.htm), fichier 2, p82

[Acajack]

On Montreal's island, obviously French surnames are the the most common, Tremblay being #1. But there are two notables exceptions in the top ten, Nguyen (apparently 40% of people of Vietnamese origins living abroad are called "Nguyen") and Patel.

The top ten goes as follows:

Tremblay
Nguyen
Gagnon
Roy
Patel
Côté
Gauthier
Bouchard
Morin
Leblanc


The only non-French surnames in Montreal's top 50 are Tran (#24) and Smith (#41).

Source: Institut de la statistique du Québec, Les noms de famille au Québec : aspects statistiques et distribution spatiale (http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/publications/demograp/noms_famille.htm), fichier 2, p82

Great link.

I was kind of surprised that Gauthier was number one for Gatineau and the Outaouais. I thought for sure it would be Séguin or Desjardins. (Although both are in the top 10.)

[kwoldtimer]

The posts above have already noted two that I find common - If you meet a Noseworthy, it's a pretty good chance that they're from, or have ties to, Newfoundland. The many Tremblays of the Lac St-Jean region are famous.

Here in K-W, it would have to be the prevalence of Mennonite and other German names: Schneider, Snyder, Eby, Weber (WEE-ber), Weibe (WEE-bee), Breithaupt (Bright-up), Kaufman, etc, etc, etc. The local namer Bindernagel (BIN-der-Nah-gull) is not all that common but has always delighted me for some reason.

[Acajack]

Prince Edward Island: MacDonald is likely to most common surname.

On PEI you also find quite a few people with Lebanese surnames like Tawil/Taweel/Tawil and of course Ghiz.

Also, many anglicized Acadian surnames like Grasse (pronounced like grass) which was originally DeGrâce.

I also wonder if Kneabone/Kneebone is not a typical PEI surname as well. (Which may have spread from there of course.)

Newfoundland: Axworthy, Noseworthy, Outhouse stand out in my mind. Also Costello, which you wouldn't necessarily expect there.

[Acajack]

The posts above have already noted two that I find common - If you meet a Noseworthy, it's a pretty good chance that they're from, or have ties to, Newfoundland. The many Tremblays of the Lac St-Jean region are famous.

Here in K-W, it would have to be the prevalence of Mennonite and other German names: Schneider, Snyder, Eby, Weber (WEE-ber), Weibe (WEE-bee), Breithaupt (Bright-up), Kaufman, etc, etc, etc. The local namer Bindernagel (BIN-der-Nah-gull) is not all that common but has always delighted me for some reason.

They really pronounce it WEE-ber? That's really interesting. I would have thought either WEBB-er, or VEBB-er (as in Max - I think).

[Acajack]

Acadians or any Canadian francophones with the name Legresley almost certainly have their family roots in Grande-Anse, New Brunswick.

For people with the names D'Entremont or D'Eon, it would be the Pubnico region of Nova Scotia.

The Baie des Chaleurs region (Quebec and New Brunswick) has quite a few long-established francophone families with Lebanese surnames like Azzi/Azzie, Abud/Abboud and Battah.

[Acajack]

There is also something about the name Friesen that automatically evokes the Prairie provinces in my mind.

[Chadillaccc]

Maybe because in the winter time, the prairies are Friezen. :rolleyes:

[David1gray]

Northern Nova Scotia it is anything with a Mc or Mac (Mcdonald, MacIssac, Mackay, etc.)

[kwoldtimer]

They really pronounce it WEE-ber? That's really interesting. I would have thought either WEBB-er, or VEBB-er (as in Max - I think).

Nope, you can always pick out the "from aways" when they say WEBB-er. It's definitely WEE-ber and WEE-bee in Waterloo County speak. Also WAG-ner and WEK-ter (Wechter) and WHY-kul (Weichel). If you pronounced them with a V sound, people would assume you were foreign!

[SignalHillHiker]

:previous:

That's hilarious. I don't think we have many surnames that have a very specific local pronunciation. Lots of Irish first names, however, that mainland Canadians often butcher - like Siobhan (Shuh-vonne).

[MTLskyline]

Prince Edward Island: MacDonald is likely to most common surname.

On PEI you also find quite a few people with Lebanese surnames like Tawil/Taweel/Tawil and of course Ghiz.

Also, many anglicized Acadian surnames like Grasse (pronounced like grass) which was originally DeGrâce.

I also wonder if Kneabone/Kneebone is not a typical PEI surname as well. (Which may have spread from there of course.)

Newfoundland: Axworthy, Noseworthy, Outhouse stand out in my mind. Also Costello, which you wouldn't necessarily expect there.
I have to say, as someone who's entire family can be traced to PEI, you covered it quite well. A few other extremely common PEI names are Gallant, Arsenault, Mac..., Murphy, etc.

In Quebec, interestingly there are some francophones with English sounding names that I haven't heard of anywhere else. Someone with the name "Handfield" is almost always francophone.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Common names in Newfoundland are dependent on the area. St. John's is pretty diverse, but Irish surnames are pretty common just outside the city. Just put an O' in front of anything you can imagine. O'Brien, O'Doul, O'Keefe, O'Riley, etc.

[Acajack]

I have to say, as someone who's entire family can be traced to PEI, you covered it quite well. A few other extremely common PEI names are Gallant, Arsenault, Mac..., Murphy, etc.

In Quebec, interestingly there are some francophones with English sounding names that I haven't heard of anywhere else. Someone with the name "Handfield" is almost always francophone.

I've noticed that too and have known francophone Handfields.

Other such names common in Gatineau (and maybe other parts of Quebec) almost always borne by francophones:

Kingsbury or Kingsberry
Flansberry
Liberty
Knight
Schryer - pronounced ''scraire'', and Scraire also exists
Crégheur (likely Krieger originally)
Tisdelle (originally Teasdale - which you also see)
Myre

[Acajack]

:previous:

That's hilarious. I don't think we have many surnames that have a very specific local pronunciation. Lots of Irish first names, however, that mainland Canadians often butcher - like Siobhan (Shuh-vonne).

One thing I noticed when travelling in Commonwealth countries is that Canada has adopted a lot of U.S. pronunciations of surnames.

For example:

Mahoney - is it maw-ny or muh-hoe-ny
Doherty - dock-erty or dorty
Strachan - strawn or strah-kun
Johnstone - glad-stunn or glad-stone

[kwoldtimer]

One thing I noticed when travelling in Commonwealth countries is that Canada has adopted a lot of U.S. pronunciations of surnames.

For example:

Mahoney - is it maw-ny or muh-hoe-ny
Doherty - dock-erty or dorty
Strachan - strawn or strah-kun
Johnstone - glad-stunn or glad-stone

I'd say Mah-HOE-nee, Doe-er--ty, Strawn (Strah-kun???!!!)

In the case of Gladstone (I think you meant), I'm somewhere between the two you list: GLAD-ston

[Innsertnamehere]

Mah-ho-knee

Doe-er-tee

Stra-ch-an

John-stone

How the hell people get glad out of John I will never know..

[Acajack]

I'd say Mah-HOE-nee, Doe-er--ty, Strawn (Strah-kun???!!!)

In the case of Gladstone (I think you meant), I'm somewhere between the two you list: GLAD-ston

How would you guys pronounce McGeough? Muh-goo? Muh-kew?

Aylwin? Ayl-win or All-win?

[isaidso]

No surnames around here seem to stand out as more common that others. It's a bit too diverse for that. If I were in Vaughan it would be different.

[Xelebes]

How would you guys pronounce McGeough? Muh-goo? Muh-kew?

Ah yes, Mr. Magoo, the blind NHL referee,

[SignalHillHiker]

One thing I noticed when travelling in Commonwealth countries is that Canada has adopted a lot of U.S. pronunciations of surnames.

For example:

Mahoney - is it maw-ny or muh-hoe-ny
Doherty - dock-erty or dorty
Strachan - strawn or strah-kun
Johnstone - glad-stunn or glad-stone

I'd do the second of all those (Muh-hoe-ny, Dorty, and Glad-stone - but the third I'd say Strackin, it's almost the same as our Strickland or whatever) - is that the American way?

[kwoldtimer]

How would you guys pronounce McGeough? Muh-goo? Muh-kew?

Aylwin? Ayl-win or All-win?

I've only seen McGeough once before, and the family pronounced it Muh-GOFF.

I've not encountered Alywin before, but I would say ALE-win (like Ale-mer ;))

When you see how the Brits pronounce surnames like Beauchamp, Dalziel and Stjames, it's not hard to understand why alternative pronunciations develop.

[Acajack]

I've only seen McGeough once before, and the family pronounced it Muh-GOFF.

I've not encountered Alywin before, but I would say ALE-win (like Ale-mer ;))

When you see how the Brits pronounce surnames like Beauchamp, Dalziel and Stjames, it's not hard to understand why alternative pronunciations develop.

I believe Brits, Aussies and Kiwis pronounce Aylmer "Elmer" and Aylwin "All-winn".

[MolsonExport]

On Montreal's island, obviously French surnames are the the most common, Tremblay being #1. But there are two notables exceptions in the top ten, Nguyen (apparently 40% of people of Vietnamese origins living abroad are called "Nguyen") and Patel.

The top ten goes as follows:

Tremblay
Nguyen
Gagnon
Roy
Patel
Côté
Gauthier
Bouchard
Morin
Leblanc


The only non-French surnames in Montreal's top 50 are Tran (#24) and Smith (#41).

Source: Institut de la statistique du Québec, Les noms de famille au Québec : aspects statistiques et distribution spatiale (http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/publications/demograp/noms_famille.htm), fichier 2, p82

Amazing link. The first non-French surname for the entire province is at the 130th ranking for Nguyen. The next is Smith, at 178th place. Really remarkable.

[MolsonExport]

I have to say, as someone who's entire family can be traced to PEI, you covered it quite well. A few other extremely common PEI names are Gallant, Arsenault, Mac..., Murphy, etc.

In Quebec, interestingly there are some francophones with English sounding names that I haven't heard of anywhere else. Someone with the name "Handfield" is almost always francophone.

Plenty of completely french Blackburns, Burns, Nelligans, Johnsons, and McGregors.

[Acajack]

Mah-ho-knee

Doe-er-tee

Stra-ch-an

John-stone

How the hell people get glad out of John I will never know..

Sorry - was a mistake on my part. I was thinking of both Johnstone and Glastone.

[Acajack]

Amazing link. The first non-French surname for the entire province is at the 130th ranking for Nguyen. The next is Smith, at 178th place. Really remarkable.

Harvey is two spots up from Nguyen at 128. But being the typical Québécois that you are, MolsonEx, I see you didn't notice it and lumped it in as a French Canadian surname! Which most people consider it to be of course. ;):D

[Acajack]

In francophone circles in eastern Ontario, the equivalent of Smith would be Lalonde.

In francophone Acadian circles in southeastern New Brunswick, the equivalents of Smith and Brown would be Leblanc and Cormier.

Also, there are a lot of francophone people with the name White in New Brunswick who are descendants of people who anglicized their original name Leblanc, but for some reason still kept up French in the family.

[Acajack]

From other languages to French:

Riley = Riel
Sullivan = Sylvain
Farnsworth = Phaneuf
Rodrigues = Rodrigue
Fulham = Foulem (NE New Brunswick)
Meyer = Mayer or Meilleur
McGee = Mainguy or Minguy
Leahey or Leahy = Lahaie or LaHaye


From French to English:

Cuillerrier = Spooner
Aucoin = Corner or O'Quinn
Beauchamp = Fairfield
Boisvert = Greenwood
Roquebrune = Rockburn
Boutillier/LeBouthillier = Butler or Boteler
Lafleur = Leafloor

[SignalHillHiker]

:previous:

Wow, the only two Newfoundlanders, friends, I know whose mother tongue is French are both O'Quinn.

We always joked that even the francophones in Newfoundland had Irish names. I don't think they even know it comes from Aucoin. Can't wait to tell them! :D

[freeweed]

There is also something about the name Friesen that automatically evokes the Prairie provinces in my mind.

Specifically Manitoba. The Mennonite names there are insanely common:

Friesen, Penner, Wiebe, Enns, Reimer, Kroeker, Loewen, Thiessen, Dueck, Neufeld, Toews, Dyck... the list goes on and on. But this dozen alone covers 90% of some towns in Manitoba.

Every single class I ever had in high school or university ended up with at least 2 or 3 of these names in it. Sometimes many more.

[Acajack]

:previous:

Wow, the only two Newfoundlanders, friends, I know whose mother tongue is French are both O'Quinn.

We always joked that even the francophones in Newfoundland had Irish names. I don't think they even know it comes from Aucoin. Can't wait to tell them! :D

The name Aucoin originates (in North America at least) on the west coast of Cape Breton Island around the town of Chéticamp.

[Acajack]

Specifically Manitoba. The Mennonite names there are insanely common:

Friesen, Penner, Wiebe, Enns, Reimer, Kroeker, Loewen, Thiessen, Dueck, Neufeld, Toews, Dyck... the list goes on and on. But this dozen alone covers 90% of some towns in Manitoba.

Every single class I ever had in high school or university ended up with at least 2 or 3 of these names in it. Sometimes many more.

Epp?

[Acajack]

:previous:

Wow, the only two Newfoundlanders, friends, I know whose mother tongue is French are both O'Quinn.

We always joked that even the francophones in Newfoundland had Irish names. I don't think they even know it comes from Aucoin. Can't wait to tell them! :D

Obviously not all O'Quinn are descendants of Aucoin. Some of the names I posted are simply people adopting an existing name that was close. But some like Phaneuf and Rodrigue have no other origin than what I stated I am pretty sure.

In western PEI you have Acadian people who are named Perry who used to be Poirier but who still speak French.

[Doug]

I doubt there is any pattern in Calgary as the region has only been inhabited for 4-5 generations and has always had a very mobile populace. Through the Prairies, you do see more Mennonite and Ukrainian names that you would encounter elsewhere. That trend is still observable in Calgary, but probably not to the same extent.

[vid]

Looking at the phone book, any names listed longer than one column (and we're not a big city so that 80 to 100 names is impressive):

Anderson
Brown
Campbell
Johnson
Martin
McDonald
Miller
Smith
Stewart

[rousseau]

Specifically Manitoba. The Mennonite names there are insanely common:

Friesen, Penner, Wiebe, Enns, Reimer, Kroeker, Loewen, Thiessen, Dueck, Neufeld, Toews, Dyck... the list goes on and on. But this dozen alone covers 90% of some towns in Manitoba.

Every single class I ever had in high school or university ended up with at least 2 or 3 of these names in it. Sometimes many more.
Heard about the disease that's raging across the Mennonite community in Southern Manitoba? It's called "Abes." It's spreading from Dyck to Dyck without Reimer Friesen.

Heh.

[kwoldtimer]

Epp?

Lots of Epps in K-W too.

[MonctonRad]

The most common surname in Moncton (by far) is LeBlanc, probably 5-6 pages in the phone book (I can't check at present as I am in Washington DC). About half the LeBlanc's however (including the current mayor) have become completely anglicized.

[Antigonish]

Northern Nova Scotia it is anything with a Mc or Mac (Mcdonald, MacIssac, Mackay, etc.)
Don't forget Chisholm, Smith and within the Acadien community Doiron is popular.

[Andy6]

In Manitoba you have the Orkney names that are now mostly (but not exclusively) possessed by the native descendants of fur traders: Spence, Isbister, Kirkness, Foubister, Inkster and others. When I was in Orkney it felt a little surreal to see these names everywhere.

Other common ones would be all the Mennonite names, which are everywhere, and the relatively few high-frequency Ukrainian names (Boyko, Kowalchuk) as well as the Icelandic names (Sigurdson).

Checking the Montreal francophone top names in Winnipeg via Canada411 you get:

Tremblay - 35 (doesn't surprise me; you don't hear this one very often in Winnipeg)
Gagnon - 66
Roy - 111 (maybe not all French-derived)
Côté - 47
Gauthier - 111
Bouchard - 61
Morin - 56
Leblanc - 55

I was trying to think of what the really common franco-Manitoban surnames are, besides these -- two that come to mind are Carrière (129) and Ducharme (94). Hébert (62), Lemoine (40), Girard (38) and Meilleur (30) are others. I'm sure I've forgotten some.

[Acajack]

In Manitoba you have the Orkney names that are now mostly (but not exclusively) possessed by the native descendants of fur traders: Spence, Isbister, Kirkness, Foubister, Inkster and others. When I was in Orkney it felt a little surreal to see these names everywhere.

Other common ones would be all the Mennonite names, which are everywhere, and the relatively few high-frequency Ukrainian names (Boyko, Kowalchuk) as well as the Icelandic names (Sigurdson).

Checking the Montreal francophone top names in Winnipeg via Canada411 you get:

Tremblay - 35 (doesn't surprise me; you don't hear this one very often in Winnipeg)
Gagnon - 66
Roy - 111 (maybe not all French-derived)
Côté - 47
Gauthier - 111
Bouchard - 61
Morin - 56
Leblanc - 55

I was trying to think of what the really common franco-Manitoban surnames are, besides these -- two that come to mind are Carrière (129) and Ducharme (94). Hébert (62), Lemoine (40), Girard (38) and Meilleur (30) are others. I'm sure I've forgotten some.

Labossière?

[Andy6]

94 Labossière, so yes, although not one that would have occurred to me. I guess there weren't any in my elementary school. Only 21 of them in Montreal.

90 Fontaine (that's more characteristically Métis than some of the others, I believe), also 52 Nault and 56 Allard. Parisien (23) is another distinctively Manitoba one. Montreal only shows 40 of them.

[Rusty van Reddick]

Judging from among the 10,000+ students I've had at the U of C over the last 13 years, the most common surnames in Calgary are Wong, Nguyen and Dhaliwal. I would be surprised if more than half of the most common surnames in Calgary are any stripe of European.

I had six Dhaliwals in my intro soc class a couple of years ago. I had one Johnson, no Smiths at all.

[vid]

No Singhs?

[Blitz]

In the Windsor region there's alot of Meloche, Ouellette, Parent, Marentette, Lauzon. (These coincide with the street names in town since the streets were named after the family that owned the long narrow piece of land that said street now occupies). Windsor was originally a French settlement which accounts for all the French names.

[Acajack]

Judging from among the 10,000+ students I've had at the U of C over the last 13 years, the most common surnames in Calgary are Wong, Nguyen and Dhaliwal. I would be surprised if more than half of the most common surnames in Calgary are any stripe of European.

I had six Dhaliwals in my intro soc class a couple of years ago. I had one Johnson, no Smiths at all.

This is a reflection of a particular sub-group in society.

There is no way that non-European surnames are *that* dominant in Calgary.

[Doug]

This is a reflection of a particular sub-group in society.

There is no way that non-European surnames are *that* dominant in Calgary.

Want to bet? Calgary has never been dominated by one or two European cultures and has always been transient so families fragment. I'm putting my money on Nguyen as the most common.

[Acajack]

Want to bet? Calgary has never been dominated by one or two European cultures and has always been transient so families fragment. I'm putting my money on Nguyen as the most common.

Some of you guys are way too drunk on multiculti kool-aid.

http://allaboutcities.ca/comparing-cities-through-surnames/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/name-change/common-surnames.html

[SignalHillHiker]

I was going through the St. John's phone book to see which names spanned several pages and none really do.

However... there is, and I am not joking, a person with the surname Getawashby.

"Get a wash, b'y!"... really?

[vid]

I'm kind of surprised at how common Anderson is. Anders must have been a horny fucker. :stunned:

[Doug]

Some of you guys are way too drunk on multiculti kool-aid.

http://allaboutcities.ca/comparing-cities-through-surnames/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/name-change/common-surnames.html

2007 is a long time ago by Calgary standards.

[vid]

Yes, everyone remembers the wave of 55,000 Nguyens who flooded Calgary in 2010, and that was followed shortly after by the Smith-Johnson-Anderson massacre which saw 10,000 people with those last names systematically annihilated by arsenic-tainted pho. To this day, Calgary has no white people and is a bastion of ethnic diversity (except for the lack of white people but they don't have any cultures anyway).

[Acajack]

Yes, everyone remembers the wave of 55,000 Nguyens who flooded Calgary in 2010, and that was followed shortly after by the Smith-Johnson-Anderson massacre which saw 10,000 people with those last names systematically annihilated by arsenic-tainted pho. To this day, Calgary has no white people and is a bastion of ethnic diversity (except for the lack of white people but they don't have any cultures anyway).

Je t'aime vid.

Seriously though, I think the surnames for Montreal (quite predominantly French Canadian) really show how established populations have a lot of staying power. Even Toronto and Vancouver, though very mixed, still have a lot of traditional anglo names in their top 10s.

For Calgary being mainly non-European in surnames, we'll talk in 20 years maybe.

[vid]

You can't expect it to happen overnight. There are so many Smiths and Johnsons because they've been living here for over 100 years. The original Smith couple probably have 6 to 10 kids, each of them had 6 to 10 kids, who had 6 to 10 kids, and those kids probably had at least 2 each, and we're 6, 7, 8 generations in. The Nguyen's just moved here and have two kids.

Rusty is only seeing so many Asian students because he a university professor. Most of the people I know at LU are Asian, too. When I was at University of Manitoba on Tuesday, I also saw lots of Asian people there. Gee, I guess Universities in Canada have a lot of Asian students?

They're not even permanent residents, they're just here to learn. Most of the students at Con College's flight school in Thunder Bay are Asian. Every year, a city in Taiwan sends a dozen of them to attend as part of some sort of agreement. And that Turkish guy that stole the plane and flew to Missouri a few years ago, he was a student there too.

[Acajack]

In the Windsor region there's alot of Meloche, Ouellette, Parent, Marentette, Lauzon. (These coincide with the street names in town since the streets were named after the family that owned the long narrow piece of land that said street now occupies). Windsor was originally a French settlement which accounts for all the French names.

Marentette... that one is virtually nowhere to be found in other francophone parts of Canada.

[SignalHillHiker]

French is a very common surname in St. John's, but they're all anglophones.

Barbour is also fairly common, and some of them are still francophone.

[Acajack]

French is a very common surname in St. John's, but they're all anglophones.

Barbour is also fairly common, and some of them are still francophone.

Is that right. It's not really a name you see for francophones in the more French parts of the country.

[Acajack]

You can't expect it to happen overnight. There are so many Smiths and Johnsons because they've been living here for over 100 years. The original Smith couple probably have 6 to 10 kids, each of them had 6 to 10 kids, who had 6 to 10 kids, and those kids probably had at least 2 each, and we're 6, 7, 8 generations in. The Nguyen's just moved here and have two kids.

Rusty is only seeing so many Asian students because he a university professor. Most of the people I know at LU are Asian, too. When I was at University of Manitoba on Tuesday, I also saw lots of Asian people there. Gee, I guess Universities in Canada have a lot of Asian students?

They're not even permanent residents, they're just here to learn. Most of the students at Con College's flight school in Thunder Bay are Asian. Every year, a city in Taiwan sends a dozen of them to attend as part of some sort of agreement. And that Turkish guy that stole the plane and flew to Missouri a few years ago, he was a student there too.

If you taught at La Cité collégiale in Ottawa and based your views on that you'd say that Franco-Ontarians were predominantly black. With most of the rest Arab...

[Xelebes]

Names I have come across in Edmonton, compared on Canada411:

Smith - 564
Lee - 411
Wong - 382
Johnson - 252
Campbell - 221
Nguyen - 213
Jones - 196
Peters(on) - 170
Singh - 156
Morris - 151
Schmidt - 127
Nichol - 118 (all variations)
Li - 111

[Rusty van Reddick]

No Singhs?

Not as many as Dhaliwals.

And my method of quantifying surnames is about as valid as is counts from the phone directory. Predominately older people are listed in the white pages.

I'm sticking by my claim. There are absolutely more Nguyens than Smiths in Calgary. No question.

[Acajack]

Not as many as Dhaliwals.

And my method of quantifying surnames is about as valid as is counts from the phone directory. Predominately older people are listed in the white pages.

I'm sticking by my claim. There are absolutely more Nguyens than Smiths in Calgary. No question.

It is certainly possible, given that Nguyen is a hugely concentrated name which is borne by 40% of Vietnamese. Just like Park and Kim for Koreans.

That's very different than saying that Calgary's population overall predominately bears non-European surnames.

[Xelebes]

Not as many as Dhaliwals.

And my method of quantifying surnames is about as valid as is counts from the phone directory. Predominately older people are listed in the white pages.

I'm sticking by my claim. There are absolutely more Nguyens than Smiths in Calgary. No question.

Canada411 pull: 863 Smiths versus 217 Nguyens

[Rusty van Reddick]

It is certainly possible, given that Nguyen is a hugely concentrated name which is borne by 40% of Vietnamese. Just like Park and Kim for Koreans.

That's very different than saying that Calgary's population overall predominately bears non-European surnames.

Okay, whatever, wait a few years and use my university students as an indication of where this city is going.

[Acajack]

Okay, whatever, wait a few years and use my university students as an indication of where this city is going.

On this I agree. Provided that all of those foreign students stick around.

[MolsonExport]

I was bording a flight to Korea once, at JFK (New York). There was an announcement: "Paging passengers Park, Lee, and Kim, please come to the flight desk". Half the waiting room suddenly stood and moved en mass forward.

[Acajack]

Weird Canadian surname:

MacComeau or McComeau.

A mix of the Scottish and Irish Mac/Mc for "son of", plus a typical French Acadian surname from the Maritimes.

I really wonder how this happened. Especially since it is really found only in Quebec, not in Nova Scotia where this mix might have more logically occurred.

[freeweed]

Comeauson.

I made this up, but I'm sure you can think of some if you dig hard enough, Acajack :)

I'm still waiting to see something insane like Laboisssieredottir. I love the Icelandic naming.

[kwoldtimer]

Weird Canadian surname:

MacComeau or McComeau.

A mix of the Scottish and Irish Mac/Mc for "son of", plus a typical French Acadian surname from the Maritimes.

I really wonder how this happened. Especially since it is really found only in Quebec, not in Nova Scotia where this mix might have more logically occurred.

Could it be an an adaptation of something like the name McComb? I think a number of French names in Canada actually have non-French origins, do they not?

[freeweed]

Could it be an an adaptation of something like the name McComb? I think a number of French names in Canada actually have non-French origins, do they not?

Absolutely possible. My surname is a many-many-times bastardization of the original French name and only exists in North America (plus a few who've moved back to the home country over the centuries). Fairly Anglo-influenced - you can see the changes happen in our family tree, which often corresponded to periods when my ancestors tended to have more Anglo influence in their lives. Of course today it's considered in some parts (of Montreal, mostly) to be like a French "Smith".

We didn't get changed right off the boat, like so many other "foreign-sounding" names - but the same thinking led to the same effect.

[Andy6]

MacComeau or McComeau.

A mix of the Scottish and Irish Mac/Mc for "son of", plus a typical French Acadian surname from the Maritimes.

I really wonder how this happened. Especially since it is really found only in Quebec, not in Nova Scotia where this mix might have more logically occurred.

There was a lot of mixing between Scots and French in Quebec. My own forebears lived in a Gaelic-speaking community of thousands of people in the hinterlands east of Sherbrooke, where the few French-Canadians were said to speak English with a distinct Gaelic accent. I used to have an old magazine article written c. 1920 by my grandfather's aunt that mentioned some of the odd "French" surnames that had arisen from the inter-marriages that took place. I remember "Camelle", which was "Campbell".

I saw a genealogical study on the Internet a few years ago that traced the ancestry of postwar Quebec premiers, and if I remember correctly all of them except one (Landry?) were partly of British Isles descent, mostly Irish or Scottish.

[Andy6]

Absolutely possible. My surname is a many-many-times bastardization of the original French name and only exists in North America (plus a few who've moved back to the home country over the centuries). Fairly Anglo-influenced - you can see the changes happen in our family tree, which often corresponded to periods when my ancestors tended to have more Anglo influence in their lives. Of course today it's considered in some parts (of Montreal, mostly) to be like a French "Smith".

We didn't get changed right off the boat, like so many other "foreign-sounding" names - but the same thinking led to the same effect.

Realistically many people in the 19th century couldn't read or write at all, and even if they could they might have written their surnames, or anything else, only very rarely. And it was much commoner to spell things in whatever way suited you in those days. They weren't walking around with ID's in their wallets or anything like that. Plus it would often be the case that the minister or priest would decide how your name was spelled, when he wrote it on your baptismal certificate, which would give added impetus to frequent changes in how a family's name was spelled.

[MTLskyline]

http://worldnames.publicprofiler.org/Main.aspx

This website is really interesting. It is compiled by the University College of London and you can view most common surnames and first names in a municipality, province or country.

It seems inaccurate though (even though they claim they've used phone records and electoral list data)... In Montreal, no way are three names starting with the letter "O" 1-2-3. I don't even know anyone with the name Onishi... There are like 5,000 people of Japanese origin in Greater Montreal, so it's impossible that this is one of the top surnames. The Quebec list is also suspect. It is a well known fact that the most common name in Quebec is Tremblay.

Montreal
O'NEILL
ONG
ONISHI
NGUYEN
LEE
PIERRE
LEVY
SINGH
RUSSO
FRIEDMAN

Quebec
CLICHE
L'HEUREUX
BEGIN
LEE
COTE
LADOUCEUR
BOLDUC
CHRETIEN
BLOUIN
LAJOIE

Canada
SMITH
TAYLOR
LEBLANC
SCOTT
ANDERSON
JOHNSON
KING
MURPHY
YOUNG
JONES

[Andy6]

The only clearly British Isles surnames in Toronto's top ten are "Dwyer" and "Baxter" ... I don't find that terribly plausible.

[Doug]

That's very different than saying that Calgary's population overall predominately bears non-European surnames.

No one every made that claim. Calgary's European population is very fragmented, probably more so than in other parts of the country, so there is more diversity in last names. The homestead boom of the early 1900's drew people to the Prairies from all over Europe and the US, not just from the British Isles or France. Plus Alberta has had a very mobile population since the 1950's, adding the mix.

[Bdog]

yes, everyone remembers the wave of 55,000 nguyens who flooded calgary in 2010, and that was followed shortly after by the smith-johnson-anderson massacre which saw 10,000 people with those last names systematically annihilated by arsenic-tainted pho. To this day, calgary has no white people and is a bastion of ethnic diversity (except for the lack of white people but they don't have any cultures anyway).

epic

[vid]

No one every made that claim. Calgary's European population is very fragmented, probably more so than in other parts of the country, so there is more diversity in last names. The homestead boom of the early 1900's drew people to the Prairies from all over Europe and the US, not just from the British Isles or France. Plus Alberta has had a very mobile population since the 1950's, adding the mix.

Yeah, because cities east of the Prairies don't have large populations of Ukrainians, Italians, Poles, Finns, German, Dutch, or Swedes, etc.

The reason the English last names are so prevalent is probably because most of them are descendant from a few people that got here a long time ago. My great-grandfather was a Quebecois with the name Lee, his family has been here since the late 1600s. Those two original settler's must have thousands of descendants by now (my great grandmother alone has over 200). They got a head start over the Central/Northern/Eastern Europeans, and the non-Europeans.

My last name isn't Lee because I'm descended from a female in that family.

[Acajack]

No one every made that claim. Calgary's European population is very fragmented, probably more so than in other parts of the country, so there is more diversity in last names. The homestead boom of the early 1900's drew people to the Prairies from all over Europe and the US, not just from the British Isles or France. Plus Alberta has had a very mobile population since the 1950's, adding the mix.

Read what Rusty said originally - he said that the most common surnames in Calgary were names like Grewal and Nguyen, and alluded that European names weren't that common.

As for the groups you named - Europeans, Americans... would they not have mostly had European surnames at that time? Yaremchuk is a European name. As are Perkio or Peplinski.

[dsim249]

For SK, a lot of those Mennonite names like Manitoba and Alberta.

Friesen, Penner, Wiebe, Enns, Reimer, Kroeker, Loewen, Thiessen, Dueck, Neufeld, Toews, Dyck, Epp

I have friends that bear all of these names, except for Kroeker.

The most common last name to me personally is probably Neufeld.

[Acajack]

Driving around Gatineau I was reminded of this interesting local name:

Schingh

Everybody who has this name seems to be French Canadian, even though it almost sounds like a name from India (pretty close to Singh).

And a few names from Quebec that one might say were ''separated at birth''.

Besner - can be an old stock Québécois French Canadian or an Anglo-Jewish name in Montreal

Montour - borne by both Haitians and... Mohawks!

[Capsicum]

Driving around Gatineau I was reminded of this interesting local name:

Schingh

Everybody who has this name seems to be French Canadian, even though it almost sounds like a name from India (pretty close to Singh).

And a few names from Quebec that one might say were ''separated at birth''.

Besner - can be an old stock Québécois French Canadian or an Anglo-Jewish name in Montreal

Montour - borne by both Haitians and... Mohawks!

Interesting that a few popular Canadian surnames are shared between the so-called "old stock" or "charter groups" and Canada's more common non-European visible minorities.

Gill can be English, Scottish, or Punjabi.

Roy can be French, English or Scottish (ultimately of Norman origin), and from the Indian subcontinent.

Lee can be English, Irish, Korean or Chinese.

[Acajack]

Gill can also be a French Canadian name.

[lrt's friend]

What would be interesting would be surnames that were anglicized both in spelling and pronunciation. I have even heard many names of Irish origin whose pronunciations have been altered.

A well known street in Ottawa is Heron Road. Old records had it spelt Herron and I have heard it pronounced by older people as Her - un whereas everybody now pronounces it as Hair - in . I know a descendant of this family and he uses the current pronunciation but had heard of the older pronunciation as well.

I was also shocked to hear Blais pronounced as Blah locally, something I expect that will revert back to the traditional French pronunciation as the older generation dies off.

[Acajack]

I was also shocked to hear Blais pronounced as Blah locally, something I expect that will revert back to the traditional French pronunciation as the older generation dies off.

How would you pronounce Blais yourself?

It's sometimes hard to spell out the sound of French names in English, but if I give it a shot, in French it's always "bleh" and rhymes with "meh" (best example I could find). The ending sounds like the "ea" in "head".

A lot of anglophones seem to pronounce it "blay". I believe that's the way Ottawa city councillor Stephen Blais says his last name when speaking in English (his native language).

[kwoldtimer]

How would you pronounce Blais yourself?

It's sometimes hard to spell out the sound of French names in English, but if I give it a shot, in French it's always "bleh" and rhymes with "meh" (best example I could find). The ending sounds like the "ea" in "head".

A lot of anglophones seem to pronounce it "blay". I believe that's the way Ottawa city councillor Stephen Blais says his last name when speaking in English (his native language).

To me it's "bleh" unless I know it should be "blay". I have never heard "blah".

[begratto]

How would you pronounce Blais yourself?

It's sometimes hard to spell out the sound of French names in English, but if I give it a shot, in French it's always "bleh" and rhymes with "meh" (best example I could find). The ending sounds like the "ea" in "head".

A lot of anglophones seem to pronounce it "blay". I believe that's the way Ottawa city councillor Stephen Blais says his last name when speaking in English (his native language).

I'd say that "ais" in Blais sounds like the "E" in Estonia, or in estimate.

Almost like "blessed", without the "ssed" part.

[Acajack]

To me it's "bleh" unless I know it should be "blay". I have never heard "blah".

"Blah" sounds maybe like someone who doesn't speak French trying too hard to say it the French way, but doesn't really know how to.

[Pinion]

.

[lrt's friend]

How would you pronounce Blais yourself?

It's sometimes hard to spell out the sound of French names in English, but if I give it a shot, in French it's always "bleh" and rhymes with "meh" (best example I could find). The ending sounds like the "ea" in "head".

A lot of anglophones seem to pronounce it "blay". I believe that's the way Ottawa city councillor Stephen Blais says his last name when speaking in English (his native language).

As an Anglophone, to be honest, more likely as "blay". The "blah" pronunciation is a very localized, old rural pronunciation relating to one extended family that has a road named in their honour. The surrounding rural population was mostly Irish Catholic and Protestant.

[Acajack]

A few pronunciations from Quebec. Note when I exaggerated the number of Rs it's to emphasize the French/Latin rolled R. Symbolized by an upside down R in the phonetic alphabet.

Harvey = Ahrr-vay

Smith = Smit

Ross = Rrr-uhss

Maloney = mahl-oh-nay

Ryan = rrreye-uhn

Whissell = whee-ssell (as opposed to "whistle")

Kennedy = kenne-day

Source: multiple people I've known with these names.

[Acajack]

As an Anglophone, to be honest, more likely as "blay". The "blah" pronunciation is a very localized, old rural pronunciation relating to one extended family that has a road named in their honour. The surrounding rural population was mostly Irish Catholic and Protestant.

That's Blais Road down near Leitrim in rural southern Ottawa?

[Acajack]

Kelly = kell-ay

M(a)cKenzie = mac-ken-zay

Also, Miller is often pronounced "mee-lairrr". There is also the surname Millaire which may be a francization of Miller.

[lrt's friend]

That's Blais Road down near Leitrim in rural southern Ottawa?

Yes.

Another related to a lumberyard that was in business for 40 years in the same general area. Daoust was always pronounced as Doe relating to this business and the associated family while everybody knew that the correct pronunciation of this name was quite different. I don't know how this came to be, but perhaps, because the community was mainly Anglophone and had a hard time pronouncing the name properly.

[Acajack]

Yes.

Another related to a lumberyard that was in business for 40 years in the same general area. Daoust was always pronounced as Doe relating to this business and the associated family while everybody knew that the correct pronunciation of this name was quite different. I don't know how this came to be, but perhaps, because the community was mainly Anglophone and had a hard time pronouncing the name properly.

I've heard both "doe" and "dah-oo" for Daoust/D'Aoust from people who were actually francophones. Though "dah-oo" is by far the most common way to say it.

[lrt's friend]

A few pronunciations from Quebec. Note when I exaggerated the number of Rs it's to emphasize the French/Latin rolled R. Symbolized by an upside down R in the phonetic alphabet.

Harvey = Ahrr-vay

Smith = Smit

Ross = Rrr-uhss

Maloney = mahl-oh-nay

Ryan = rrreye-uhn

Whissell = whee-ssell (as opposed to "whistle")

Kennedy = kenne-day

Source: multiple people I've known with these names.

I used to comment with a Francophone friend (who was very bilingual) about pronouncing Harold as 'Ahrr-old' (removing the H) while pronouncing Albert as 'Hal-burt' (adding an H) .

[Capsicum]

Gill can also be a French Canadian name.

So Gill can be an all-Canadian name (okay, so that goes against the spirit of Canadian identity set out by Pierre Trudeau in his quote about how there's no such thing as an "all-Canadian boy or girl", which some took to be a foil to the idea of the "all-American" archetype, but whatever :P) -- it's got the possibility of being English, French, Scottish and thus could pass for any of the "charter" or "old stock Canadian" surnames, in addition to belonging to a visible minority (Punjabi) that's also represented in Canada.

Official most common surnames in Vancouver:

1. Lee
2. Wong
3. Chan
4. Smith
5. Kim
6. Chen
7. Gill
8. Li
9. Brown
10. Johnson

Disclaimer, this list is 10 years old... so almost as old as this thread. :P

Probably the mix of the Anglo-Celtic (English, Irish) Lees and the East Asian Lees (Chinese, Korean) puts Lee on the top of the list.

Is someone with the name "Lee" (assuming no other background info) more likely to be assumed to be white or East Asian these days in Canada?

My impression is that I think of a Canadian "Lee" as being an Asian Vancouverite or Torontonian but an American "Lee" as being a white/European-descended Southerner.

[Pinion]

.