Mapping the Hotspots of Britain's Surnames

Looking for someone in the U.K. with the same last name? If so, a new map tool can show you where to find them. Created by geographers at University College London together with the U.K.’s Economic and Social Research Council, the ”named” website will take any surname you type in and tell you where in the country people with that name form the largest share of the population.

Some of the results are much as you’d expect. The biggest concentration of Macdonalds is in Scotland’s far north, for instance, while the name Smith crops up pretty much everywhere. What’s perhaps most striking is just how concentrated in a particular place many names have remained, despite migration over centuries. Here’s project leader Paul Longley, via a press release: