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Guess a Top 5 Last Name by Country

For each selected country, name one of the top 5 most common surnames used by citizens of that country.
Answer must correspond to the highlighted box
For India, the data comes from Indian immigrants living in the U.K.
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: October 27, 2019
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First submittedOctober 20, 2019
Times taken31,051
Average score33.3%
Rating4.64
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Country
Last Names
United States
Smith | Johnson | Williams | Brown | Jones
China
Wang | Li | Zhang | Liu | Chen
South Korea
Kim | Lee | Park | Choi | Jeong
Spain
García | Fernández | González | Rodríguez | López
Vietnam
Nguyen | Tran | Le | Pham | Huynh
Sweden
Andersson | Johansson | Karlsson | Nilsson | Eriksson
Russia
Smirnov | Ivanov | Kuznetsov | Popov | Sokolov
Portugal
Silva | Santos | Ferreira | Pereira | Oliveira
Poland
Nowak | Kowalski | Wiśniewski | Wójcik | Kowalczyk
India *
Patel | Singh | Kaur | Shah | Miah
Egypt
Mohamed | Ahmed | Hassan | Ali | Mahmoud
Israel
Cohen | Levi | Mizrachi | Peretz | Biton
Netherlands
De Jong | Jansen | De Vries | Van den Berg | Van Dijk
Italy
Rossi | Russo | Ferrari | Esposito | Bianchi
France
Martin | Bernard | Dubois | Thomas | Robert
Ireland
Murphy | O'Kelly | O'Sullivan | Walsh | Smith
Germany
Müller | Schmidt | Schneider | Fischer | Meyer
Japan
Satō | Suzuki | Takahashi | Tanaka | Watanabe
+23
Level 77
Oct 27, 2019
Should've channeled the penguins of Madagascar for Poland. Great quiz, surprisingly difficult.
+2
Level 71
May 29, 2020
That's what I did. :P
+3
Level 58
Aug 29, 2022
I guessed Wazowski. As in Mike Wazowski
+9
Level 84
Oct 27, 2019
4 of the 5 from France are first names. :-) At least to me.
+11
Level 76
Oct 27, 2019
Egypt beats that with 5 out of 5.
+13
Level 82
Oct 28, 2019
5/5 from Germany are professions.
+2
Level 79
Jan 19, 2020
I thought 3/5? Or is Schmidt derived from Schmied (blacksmith)? What about Meyer?
+3
Level 78
Jan 22, 2020
Schmidt is derived from Schmied and Meier is an old word for a farm steward.
+1
Level 72
Jul 4, 2022
Could say the same for Sweden.
+7
Level 70
Oct 28, 2019
Should've gotten Silva and van Dijk
+1
Level 82
Oct 28, 2019
Football fan?
+1
Level 66
Jan 18, 2020
D'aw man, I guessed Da Silva. :(
+1
Level 82
Oct 28, 2019
Slovenia: Novak | Horvat | Kovačič | Krajnc | Zupančič
+4
Level 88
Oct 28, 2019
Thank heavens this one wasn't on the quiz! ;)
+1
Level 69
Oct 26, 2020
So basically the most common surname in Slovenia is the same as in Poland. :)
+4
Level 87
Oct 28, 2019
You know, this is one quiz where the yellow bar is pretty much unnecessary!
+5
Level ∞
Oct 28, 2019
Smith is an answer for Ireland so without the yellow box I'd have to remove Ireland. Also, there are probably lots of things that could fill in at least one of the Chinese names.
+1
Level 56
Nov 12, 2020
I just typed Smith twice... and would have done it three times if Britain had been on there
+2
Level 88
Oct 28, 2019
So rattling off famous product names like some bad stereotype actually works, huh? Hafta remember those lovable Popov and Smirnoff families.
+8
Level 74
Oct 28, 2019
Unexpectedly hard for France...
+1
Level 74
Nov 3, 2019
Agreed!
+1
Level 69
Oct 26, 2020
One of only 4 I didn't get. I knew cyclists Guillaume Martin, Julien Bernard and Benjamin Thomas but I wouldn't have any idea that these were popular surnames!
+12
Level 74
Nov 3, 2019
Er...the names for India refer to the most common names for people born in India living in the UK -- yet excludes people actually living in India? This is very specific, and including it here seems a little bizarre -- especially labelled "India". These five names tell us precious little about the most common names in India; many factors have a huge impact on who migrates (e.g. chain migration, urban/rural, caste). The five names don't even tell us anything about the frequency of these names for UK residents of Indian origin; it's specifically Indian immigrants only (I take that to mean first generation). I suggest taking India off the quiz, or getting actual data for India (I realize there are challenges to this given record-keeping practices esp in rural areas). I'm guessing there are lots of countries with data fitting better into this quiz.
+2
Level 46
Jan 19, 2020
Very true, as an Indian immigrant living in the UK, The few hundred thousand of us do not at all represent the most common Indian surnames, largely because an overwhelming majority of Indian immigrants in the UK are either Punjabi or Gujarati, which mean very common surnames in the subcontinent like Kumar, Agarwal, Sharma get severely outnumbered in the UK by Patels and Singhs.
+3
Level ∞
Dec 29, 2021
It's not like we used this because we wanted to, it's because there is no good data for India itself.
+4
Level 73
Jan 18, 2020
Here's one quiz where stereotypes get seriously rewarded.
+2
Level 92
Jan 18, 2020
All the Egyptian names are actually first names.
+2
Level 62
Jan 18, 2020
i just guessed sports players, like

Evgeny Kuznetsov,

Erik Karlsson,

Ichiro Suzuki,

Virgil Van Dijk, etc.

+2
Level 60
Jan 18, 2020
I didn't understood what's up with India. Living in India, the actual data is different for India. The most common surnames are Agarwal, Singh et cétéra and at least not Miah.

Indians living in the US don't classify as Indians because they live in the US. I suggest removing India or using the data for real India

+2
Level ∞
Jan 18, 2020
Please post a link to the data then.
+2
Level 60
Jan 18, 2020
I would remove India. I'm not aware of any such reliable data being available. But 'Miah' is definitely not right last name. It just means 'gentleman' and is usually added after the first name as a way to show respect, mostly by Muslims from Indian subcontinent.
+1
Level 69
Jan 18, 2020
My cousin's husband's last name is on the Ireland one!
+1
Level 42
Jan 18, 2020
There are very few O'Kellys in Ireland. A lot of Kellys tho.

I'm pretty sure Kelly is in top five surnames. I'm sure O'Kelly isn't.

+1
Level 75
Apr 27, 2020
Absolutely correct! The use of Kelly is far more common than O'Kelly (both anglicised version of the original Gaelic name). It's only when people use the Gaelic version of their name that the O would have to go back in (well, for the male version) - Ó Cheallaigh. Female surname is Ní Cheallaigh.
+1
Level 42
Jan 18, 2020
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/revealed-top-20-irish-surnames-31414892.html

From today's Irish Independent newspaper.

+1
Level 82
Jan 19, 2020
easy for me but I made a quiz that was like this but just the top 1 answer..
+2
Level 44
Jan 21, 2020
Being a football fan helps a lot
+3
Level 56
May 18, 2020
the dutch one looks like an Ajax 5-a-side team
+1
Level 56
Nov 12, 2020
Bit baffled as to how five times as many people got the Vietnamese one as the French. Maybe because "Le" is two-thirds of the way to "Lee"..?
+3
Level 59
Dec 25, 2020
I mean 30 to 40% of the vietnamese population has the last name Nguyen. Less than 20 last names account for 90% of the population, so if you know one of them chances are you'll get the answer correct.

For the french one however, you could know 50 French names and get none of them correct. That being said, I admit that I am surprised by how few people got that question right.

+2
Level 57
Jan 24, 2021
Yeah, its very common knowledge that a huge chunk of Vietnam´s population has the last name Nguyen
+1
Level 63
Apr 26, 2023
True. Every Vietnamese person I've ever met, in fact, had the surname of Nguyen.
+1
Level 68
Aug 16, 2022
Would have liked more thinking time.
+2
Level 58
Aug 29, 2022
Kowalski, analysis
+4
Level 72
May 24, 2023
I felt so bad typing in all the stereotypical names I could think of.