Kills Me Dead

Via notemily on Tumblr, I’ve discovered the joy of the World Names Profiler. Type in any last name and it will give you all sorts of fun facts. For instance!

• My last name, which we’ve long believed to be German in origin but Polish in extraction:
  • is most common in Germany, the United States, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom. France?
  • exists at a rate of 3.16 per million in Ontario, which seems incredibly low given that there are 10 million people in this province but I’m pretty sure there are only 8 people with our last name: the six people in my immediate family, my grandma, and the guy I randomly found in our ticketing database at work when I was trying to find my own account.
• My mom’s maiden name, which she’s told me is the equivalent of “Smith” in Portugal:
  • is most common in Luxembourg, Canada, France, Switzerland, and the United States.
  • exists at a rate of 1865.67 per million in Rhode Island, and I’m sure we’re related to every last one of those people.

My maternal grandmother’s maiden name is most common in Luxembourg (again with the Portugal/Luxembourg connection!), Argentina, Spain, India, and Switzerland. On the other hand, it completely fails to acknowledge that there is anyone with my paternal grandmother’s maiden name living in Canada, even though I know there are dozens.

Some of these odd results make me curious about lesser-known colonial connections in history.

Also, trivia fact: the surname Hitler is most likely to be found in New Zealand, followed by India (?!), these days. I would have guessed Argentina, myself.