Every name has its own unique etymological origin.
Nevertheless there are many reasons why it can be useful to group names into categories, particularly family names.
In this web-site we have organised family names into categories using two different criteria, geographic regional and ethnic. The first form of categorisation that we use classifies family names according to the geographical region of Europe they are associated with. For each name we know the geographical region in Europe where it is most common and the extent to which the name is more common in that region than in Europe as a whole. Using this information we can group together into a single category all names which are more common in the Shetland Isles than anywhere else in Europe, all names which are most common in the French department of Finistere or in the Danish region of South Jutland.
Disregarding those family names which are distributed widely across one or more countries, we can in this way identify the current geographical distribution of names that appear to originate from Shetland, Finistere or South Jutland and display these patterns not just in Britain, France and Denmark, but throughout Europe, the United States and Australia. These patterns show very clearly how migrants from different regions of European countries tend to have settled in quite different parts of the United States and Australia. Most regions in the United States and Australia have close links not just to certain European countries but to certain geographical regions within them.
Mapyourname can show the geographical distribution of names from over 500 distinct European regions, analysed in this way.
The second method we use to group names is according to their “Cultural, Ethnic and Linguistic” origin. This form of grouping is less specific within Western Europe than the first method, the regional grouping, but enables us to identify the origins of non-European names. Using this classification system we can identify names which are associated with people who originate from Armenia, West Africa or Vietnam and hence map the distribution of people from these countries across the whole of Western Europe, the United States and Australia.
Mapyourname can show the geographical distribution of names from 33 different cultural, ethnic and linguistic groups, analysed in this way.
At this moment in time we have not classified personal names.
