GB Surname Profiler
Visit the site: http://www.nationaltrustnames.org.uk
Surname Profiler
The original Surname Profiler application has now been re-branded for the National Trust as part of our spatial literacy outreach activities. The site remains free to users and allows family name enthusiasts to make searches on the geography of the most frequent 25,000 surnames in Britain. These have been classified into regional or cultural groups of origin. Maps show their historic and current distributions in Great Britain and tables their areas of highest density in other parts of the world.
About the study of Surnames
The study of the geography and origins of names is a multidisciplinary research field involving such disparate disciplines such us linguistics, geography, genetics, epidemiology, history, anthropology, politics and sociology. Although with a long and established tradition, starting with Charles and George Darwin in nineteenth century up to today’s DNA and surname research, it has witnessed a significant renaissance in the last few years.This is due to the combined factors of the availability of new information technologies and a surge in interest in knowing more about people’s ancestors, family history and human origins, in a globalised world. What most of these different theoretical approaches have in common, is the key role of space in understanding the emergence, evolution, relationships and changes in distribution of names through history. Spatial analysis can then offer crucial tools and methodologies to gain new understandings of increasingly large amounts of spatio-temporal name datasets, such us place-name gazetteers, telephone directories, population registers, genealogical websites, or historical census records, all available through the internet and which provide millions of names that can be referenced to their historical places or origins. The use of geographic information systems, geodemographic, and data mining techniques has allowed researchers at spatial-literacy.org to develop new methodologies that facilitate the exploration of names historical and current spatial patterning.