Many Armenian family names end in 'ian' or 'yan' which is the give away. You could try using Sarkisian (the family name of Cher and the current President of Armenia) just to see if people could figure it out without watching reality TV. I only recognize Kim et al because I know they have an Armenian name.
schneider is german, sneijder is dutch. the difference might be small, but there is a difference. most of the names with schn are german, can't name a single dutch one even though i am dutch
Schneider is not a dutch name, then it would be sneijder, snijder or sneider, the name schneider is purely german. The name schneider also ORIGINATED in germany.
Actually the Romans introduced the bagpipes to the Caledonians (Scottish) so it wasn't the Hibernians (Irish) that gave them that part of their culture. Though yes the names did originate with them.
Mac means 'son' and is written either in full or the short version Mc. Both versions are used in Ireland and Scotland. Mc, Mac Donnell/O'Donnell are Irish names while Mc, MacDonald is Scottish. Original Irish clans had a Mac (son) and Ó (Uí,Ua) 'grandson' (or more distant relative) version of the name.
Bagpipes played nowadays are the Highland Pipes which became generally popular a couple of centuries ago. Prior to that similar bagpipes usually referred to as 'war pipes' were used in Ireland. These bagpipes had two drones on the shoulder rather than three. Eventually the Highland Pipes became more popular for 'outside' events and the Uileann Pipes for indoors.
The Romans called the people who lived in Ireland (Hibernia) 'Scoti" and these people eventually gave their name to modern Scotland. They brought the Gaelic language across to Scotland (Caledonia) and that eventually replaced the Brythonic language spoken there (usually referred to as Pictish).
Could add "Laine" which I am pretty sure is a Finnish name when I see it in endtexts. Or "Pietila" which appears in the Simpsons end texts (Bonita). Or to be the most stereotypical Finnish find a name ending in -inen :)
Jorma Kaukonen! Eero Saarinen! And that, I am sorry to say, is the extent of my knowledge of Finnish surnames (not counting Jean Sibelius, whose first language was Swedish).
The name is Arabic, but it's not really used as a surname in Saudi Arabia. I have seen it used as a surname commonly in other Arabic-speaking countries, though.
In any case, the name is from the Arabic language, but not strictly from Saudi Arabian. Most other languages are strongly associated with a certain country or origin (Irish / Ireland, Spanish / Spain), but for Arabic this is not the case. Arabia is much greater, not just geographically but also culturally, than just the Saudi kingdom. So I think Arabia instead of Saudi Arabia should be used as the place of origin for this name.
Out of these 21 names, there are 11 that belong to people I've met. All of them were born in the US (as far as I know) so it's interesting to see how many people had families that were immigrants
Over time, I noticed that fairly consistently, when Scandinavian surnames ended in "s_n", it was "son" in Sweden and "sen" in Denmark. Now I'll have to keep an eye out for how it's spelled in Norwegian names.
To Baltimorian: Or it could be that Gurderian was of Armenian heritage. I doubt if Hitler and his ilk paid much attention, as long as you looked Aryan (which, by the way is Iranian) and didn't have Jewish last name.
I knew most of them right off the bat except for Ionescu and Jafari. Ionescu I just kept guessing eastern european countries, and Jafaru I kept guessing middle eastern countries.
I tried Netherlands for smith. It is very common here, though also often written as smith. Since it was about where the name originated, I didnt try usa or uk first. Because many words came into the english language through german or dutch. Though in this case it obviously could have evolved on its own in the uk aswell, since they would have had smithies too ;).
so even if the word itself is derived from german or dutch. By the time lastnames became a thing, the word allready excisted in english.
^ In dutch, the spelling would be Smit (w/o the "h"). In German it would be Schmidt. - I spent four years in school in the Netherlands and never heard of a dutch native (or someone from within the Dutch Diaspora) spell their name any other way than Smit; Smits; or Schmidt.
I spend my whole life here and have been with a smith in every class . Never with a smit or do I know one or anyone that I know knows ones. Personal experiences dont say everything though, just because you havent come across one doesnt mean it is a (common) name here. And because I havent met a smit (even feels weird to write it like that for me..) doesnt mean they are not there. I know they are and indeed more prevalent than smith. There is also smid (and even smidt. Schmidt is german as is schmit) I think the ratio is about 4 smit 1 smid 1 smith.
I have also only come across people called Smit or Smid here, but I guess Smith with an H would be an old fashioned way of spelling Smit. We used to have more sch/ch/h in Dutch a few centuries back.
This is true, but it has popped up in several other quizzes on this site. It must be very widely known in the US, because you guys always mention that it is easy. I only know it from this site, so er, well done jetpunk !
It is such an overwhelmingly common name in Vietnam - literally 400,000x more common than the name Smith is in the UK - that if your town has even a small Vietnamese immigrant community you would have definitely heard it many times. Add in the surnames Le, Pham, Tran, Huynh, Phan, Vu, Dang, Bui, Do, Ho, Ngo, Ly, and Duong... and that's 90% of all Vietnamese people.
Conversely as a Brit it shocked me that 27% of people didn't know Patel, but I suppose it's only obvious to me because British Indian is the largest ethnic minority in our country.
I kept trying African countries for Nakamura, because it reminded me of the French (Malinese ethnicity) singer Aya Nakamura! When I later thought about it, it hit me that it also sounded very Japanese lol
I' m glad to see that I am not the only one who got tricked because thinking about Aya Nakamura. I tried Mali 7 times and then switched to a lot of African countries even those who don't speak French. Whatever glad to see my country -escu is probably the most Romanian suffix. It use to be a tie with achi * but now it s not so common, and it is mostly prevalent in Moldova*.
We have the same names in DPRK & ROK. And the diaspora, including the Chosunjok of China, Koryo-saram of the former USSR, and in the Americas and NZ/Aus although the written forms are different. Only Zainichis (Korean Japanese) have changed their names from common Korean names.
Hate that I didn't get "Teixera." I kept thinking it was a Latino name and typed literally every country in Latin America (including Brazil). I thought for sure I already tried Portugal, but I guess I didn't :P
Korea is only accepted because the last name Kim comes from the Korean language, which belongs to neither North Korea or South Korea but to both Koreas
Just to clarify, it's Pippinpaddleopsicopolis, not Papadopoulos (although I see where you get that from). I'm always happy to see Avatar fans in the comments though :)
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, 326 Indian reservations, and some minor possessions.[j] At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million square kilometers), it is the world's third- or fourth-largest country by total area.[e] The United States shares significant land borders with Canada to the north and Mexico to the south as well as limited maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, and Russia.[20] With a population of more than 331 million people, it is the third most populous country in the world. The national capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City. Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago, and European colonization began in the 16th century. The United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies.
It asks where the name ORIGINATED.
Bagpipes played nowadays are the Highland Pipes which became generally popular a couple of centuries ago. Prior to that similar bagpipes usually referred to as 'war pipes' were used in Ireland. These bagpipes had two drones on the shoulder rather than three. Eventually the Highland Pipes became more popular for 'outside' events and the Uileann Pipes for indoors.
The Romans called the people who lived in Ireland (Hibernia) 'Scoti" and these people eventually gave their name to modern Scotland. They brought the Gaelic language across to Scotland (Caledonia) and that eventually replaced the Brythonic language spoken there (usually referred to as Pictish).
http://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/33628/last-names-by-country-quiz-2
Fun quiz, I would love a longer, harder quiz, it's fun to try to figure these out.
so even if the word itself is derived from german or dutch. By the time lastnames became a thing, the word allready excisted in english.
4:03, FTR
Thanks!