The types of English surnames are occupational (Smith), locative (Pickering), topographic (Hill), patronymic (Johnson), given name (Bennett), nickname (Brown) and Norman or French (Mortimer). Nicknames are the smallest group in medieval records, at 15 to 20 per cent, according to the Guild of One-Name Studies. Below is what each type looks like, the clues that give it away, and a checker to test your own name.
This guide is part of our Scottish Names collection. Browse the Scottish Names directory, or see our British surnames guide for all four nations.
This is for anyone who wants to work out their own surname rather than take a website’s one-line answer on trust. Most English surnames can be sorted in a few minutes if you know what to look for, and the few that cannot are usually the interesting ones.
Scholars do not all count the types the same way. Patrick Hanks, chief editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Family Names, uses four broad groups in his chapter on family names: locative names, nicknames, occupational names and relationship names. Charles Bardsley in 1875 used five: baptismal or personal names, local surnames, official surnames, occupative surnames and nicknames. We split the locative group into places and landscape, split relationship names into son-of names and plain first names, and give the Norman names their own box, which gets you to seven.
Two Scots Abroad · Scottish names
What type is my surname?
47 English surnames, one for every trap in the book. Search a surname or an ending such as -son, -ley or -by, then filter by type or by whether the name is easy to read or easy to get wrong.
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The seven types at a glance
| Type | What it records | Clue to look for | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Occupational | A job, office or status | A trade word, -er, -ster, -wright, -man | Smith, Wright, Baxter, Reeve |
| Locative | A named place the family came from | -ton, -ley, -by, -worth, -cliffe, a town name | Pickering, Warburton, Kirby, Hartley |
| Topographic | A landscape feature near home | Hill, wood, green, lane, under-, at- or N- | Hill, Wood, Nash, Underhill |
| Patronymic | The father’s name | -son, -s, -kin, -kins | Johnson, Harris, Atkinson, Hawkins |
| Given name | A first name kept unchanged | Looks exactly like a first name | Bennett, Martin, Allen, Gilbert |
| Nickname | Looks, character or a joke | A colour, size, animal or title | Brown, Little, King, Farraday |
| Norman or French | Names brought by Norman and French settlers | A Normandy place or French word | Mortimer, Neville, Russell, Bellamy |
How big is each group? Nobody has a reliable national split, but local studies give a feel. In Devon in 1322, names from places made up 34 per cent of surnames and landscape names another 15 per cent, per the Guild study of place-name surnames. Yet the national top 20 is dominated by job names and son-of names, as our English surnames guide shows, because a job like smith existed in every village while each place name came from one spot.
The seven types of English surname explained
1. Occupational surnames
The job the first bearer did: Smith, Taylor, Baker, Cook. The Guild of One-Name Studies quotes a rule of thumb that job names had become hereditary by about 1350. Hanks adds two subgroups that catch people out. Status names, like Knight and Squire, sit inside this group, and so do office names: Reeve was the official who ran a manor, and Ackerman a tenant who paid his way as a ploughman. Then there are metonymic names, where the product stands in for the trade: Cheese for a cheesemaker and Wastell for someone who made fine cakes. For the Scottish side, see our Scottish occupational surnames.
2. Locative surnames
Named after a real place: a town, village, farm or estate. The family usually got the name after moving away, since nobody needed to be called Pickering in Pickering. The giveaway is a place-name ending: -ton (settlement), -ley (clearing), -worth (enclosure), -by (a Norse farm or village). The Guild found Yorkshire produced more place names than landscape names, which is why the West Riding is full of Sutcliffes and Hartleys. Our guide to Scottish surnames from places covers the same idea north of the Border, and the Norse place name guide explains the -by and -thorpe endings.
3. Topographic surnames
Named after a feature near home rather than a named place: Hill, Wood, Green, Lane, Ford, Underhill, Townsend. Some hide behind a preposition. Middle English atten ash, at the ash tree, slurred into Nash, which is a braw (fine) example of how speech wears names down. The Guild says Sussex produced more landscape names than place names, the reverse of Yorkshire.
4. Patronymic surnames
The father’s name plus an ending. -son is the northern habit (Johnson, Robinson, Wilkinson); -s leans west and into Wales, where Jones and Williams come from (see our Welsh surnames guide). Pet forms add a layer: Atkin was a pet form of Adam, so Atkinson is son of little Adam, and Hawkin was a pet form of Ralph. Hanks calls these relationship names, because they identify someone by who they were related to.
5. Given-name surnames
A first name used unchanged, with no -son or -s: Bennett (from Benet, Benedict), Martin, Allen, Gilbert, Oliver. Many came in with the Normans, which is why so many look French or Germanic. Osborne is the odd one out, from a Norse name meaning god + bear.
6. Nickname surnames
Looks, character, habits or a joke: Brown, White, Little, Armstrong, King. The Guild warns that the origin of most nicknames is obscure and many were given ironically, so a Little might have been a big lad. Wikipedia’s history of surnames makes the same point about Short, and adds that office names like King and Bishop are often nicknames too. Our favourite is Farraday, from have a fair day, for someone cheery.
7. Norman and French surnames
After 1066 Norman nobles often put de (of) before the name of their French village, which produced names like Mortimer, Neville and Percy. French job titles (Spencer), first names (Gilbert) and nicknames (Russell, a redhead; Bellamy, good friend) came too. Strictly this is an origin rather than a type, since Spencer is also occupational and Russell a nickname, which is why the checker lets a name sit in two boxes. The Norman surnames in Scotland page covers the families who went north.
How to work out what type your surname is
Work through these in order. Each step takes a minute, and most names are sorted by step three.
- Strip the ending. Take off -son, -s, -kin or -kins first, because if what is left is a first name or a pet form (Wilkin, Hawkin, Atkin), you have a patronymic.
- Look for a place-name ending. -ton, -ley, -by, -thorpe, -worth, -royd or -thwaite point to a locative name, so search a map for the place before anything else.
- Check for a job word. Some are obvious (Baker); some are fossils (Wright, Chandler) or hide behind -ster and -er (Baxter, Webster). If the name is a product, like Cheese, think of who made it.
- Read it as a description. Colours, sizes, animals and titles are usually nicknames, but remember the irony rule.
- If it looks French, check Normandy. Mortimer, Neville and Percy are all villages there.
- If you are still stuck, check the dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names covers 45,600 surnames, and the UWE launch notes say public libraries that subscribe give free access. The catch is the subscription, so ask your library before you pay for anything.
Watch out for: names that look like one type and are another. Gaukroger looks like a nickname, foolish Roger, and was long explained that way; Hanks notes that the historian Redmonds showed it is a place name meaning roughly cuckoo crag. Hall can be topographic (lived at the hall) or occupational (worked there). And Walker is a job, not a hobby. Nae (no) shame in getting one wrong; the dictionary writers did.
Quick list: all 47 example surnames by type
| Surname | Type | Meaning | The clue | Easy or tricky |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ackerman | Occupational | a bond tenant of a manor who paid by serving as a ploughman | -man, a status | Easy to get wrong |
| Baxter | Occupational | a baker (northern England and Scotland) | -ster ending | Easy to get wrong |
| Cheese | Occupational | a maker or seller of cheese | named after the product, not the job | Easy to get wrong |
| Fletcher | Occupational | an arrow-maker | a job word from French | Easy to spot |
| Reeve | Occupational | a bailiff | an office title | Easy to get wrong |
| Smith | Occupational | a smith, a metalworker | a plain job word | Easy to spot |
| Spencer | Occupational, Norman or French | someone who worked in a spence, or a butler or steward | a French job title | Easy to get wrong |
| Walker | Occupational | a fuller who trod (walked) cloth | looks like walking | Easy to get wrong |
| Wastell | Occupational, Norman or French | someone who made or sold fine cakes | named after the product, not the job | Easy to get wrong |
| Wright | Occupational | a builder or maker (wright) | -wright, a maker | Easy to get wrong |
| Gaukroger | Locative | roughly cuckoo crag, a place | looks like a first name | Easy to get wrong |
| Hartley | Locative | hart clearing (heorot + leah) | -ley, a clearing | Easy to spot |
| Kirby | Locative | village with a church (kirk + by) | -by, a Norse farm or village | Easy to spot |
| Mortimer | Locative, Norman or French | from Mortemer in Normandy, dead pond | a Normandy place | Easy to get wrong |
| Neville | Locative, Norman or French | new town, from Neuville in Normandy | a Normandy place | Easy to spot |
| Percy | Locative, Norman or French | from Percy-en-Auge in Normandy | a Normandy place | Easy to spot |
| Pickering | Locative | from Pickering, the North Yorkshire town | a town name | Easy to spot |
| Sutcliffe | Locative | south cliff (suth + clif) | -cliffe | Easy to spot |
| Tordoff | Locative | from Tordoff Point on the Solway Firth | an obscure place | Easy to get wrong |
| Warburton | Locative | Waerburg’s estate | -ton, a settlement | Easy to spot |
| Hill | Topographic | someone who lived on or by a hill | a landscape word | Easy to spot |
| Nash | Topographic | at the ash tree | N- from atten | Easy to get wrong |
| Sykes | Topographic | someone by a sike, a small stream or ditch | an old word for a stream | Easy to get wrong |
| Townsend | Topographic | someone who lived at the end of the village | where in the village | Easy to spot |
| Underhill | Topographic | someone who lived at the foot of a hill | Under- | Easy to spot |
| Wood | Topographic | someone who lived or worked in a wood | a landscape word | Easy to spot |
| Atkinson | Patronymic | son of Atkin, a pet form of Adam | -kin + -son | Easy to get wrong |
| Harris | Patronymic | son of Harry, the Middle English form of Henry | -s | Easy to spot |
| Hawkins | Patronymic | son of Hawkin (young Ralph), or from Hawkinge in Kent | -kin + -s | Easy to get wrong |
| Johnson | Patronymic | son of John | -son | Easy to spot |
| Robinson | Patronymic | son of Robin | -son on a pet name | Easy to spot |
| Wilkinson | Patronymic | son of Wilkin | -kin + -son | Easy to spot |
| Allen | Given name | from the given name Alan | a first name, unchanged | Easy to spot |
| Bennett | Given name | from a medieval form of Benedict | a first name, unchanged | Easy to spot |
| Gilbert | Given name, Norman or French | pledge + bright or famous | a Norman first name | Easy to spot |
| Martin | Given name | from the given name Martin, linked to Mars | a first name, unchanged | Easy to spot |
| Oliver | Given name, Norman or French | from Olivier, a paladin of Charlemagne | a French first name | Easy to spot |
| Osborne | Given name | god + bear (Asbjorn) | a Norse first name | Easy to get wrong |
| Armstrong | Nickname | a nickname for someone with strong arms | a body part | Easy to spot |
| Bellamy | Nickname, Norman or French | good friend | a French phrase | Easy to spot |
| Brown | Nickname | brown hair or a dark complexion | a colour | Easy to spot |
| Butlin | Nickname, Norman or French | from Old French boute-vilain, hustle the churl | a French phrase | Easy to get wrong |
| Farraday | Nickname | from faire dai, (have a) fair day, a cheerful person | a greeting | Easy to get wrong |
| King | Nickname | someone who acted like a king or worked in the king’s household | a title | Easy to get wrong |
| Little | Nickname | small (or, ironically, big) or younger | a size | Easy to get wrong |
| Russell | Nickname, Norman or French | red-haired (Norman nickname) | a French nickname | Easy to get wrong |
| White | Nickname | white hair or a pale complexion | a colour | Easy to spot |
FAQ about types of English surnames
What are the main types of English surnames?
There are seven useful types: occupational (Smith), locative or place names (Pickering), topographic or landscape names (Hill), patronymic or son-of names (Johnson), given-name surnames (Bennett), nicknames (Brown) and Norman or French names (Mortimer). Some scholars group them into four or five broader categories instead.
What is the most common type of English surname?
By number of people, job names and son-of names lead: Smith, Taylor, Johnson and Wilson are all near the top of England and Wales. By number of different names, place names are huge, making up about a third of surnames in Devon in 1322, but each one is usually rare.
What is a locative surname?
A locative surname comes from a named place, such as a town, village or farm, usually given to someone who had moved away from it. Pickering, Warburton, Sutcliffe and Kirby are examples. Endings like -ton, -ley, -by and -worth are the usual giveaway.
What is the difference between a locative and a topographic surname?
A locative surname names a specific place, like Pickering or Warburton. A topographic surname describes a feature near where someone lived, like Hill, Wood or Underhill. The Guild of One-Name Studies notes the terms overlap, and scholars do not all use them the same way.
What is a metonymic surname?
A metonymic surname names a product or tool instead of the job itself. Patrick Hanks gives Cheese, for a maker or seller of cheese, and Wastell, for someone who made fine cakes. They are counted as a kind of occupational surname.
Final thoughts on types of English surnames
Once you can spot the seven types, most English surnames read like a short description of someone you never met: what they did, where they lived, who their father was, or what the neighbours called them. The tricky ones are worth the extra digging.
Test your own name in the checker, then look it up in our full list of 150 English surnames, linked above, for the meaning and the county where it was strongest. If it turns out to be Scottish after all, welcome to the family.
Sources
- Patrick Hanks, Family Names (chapter 15)
- Guild of One-Name Studies, Occupational surnames
- Guild of One-Name Studies, Toponyms
- Guild of One-Name Studies, Nicknames
- Wikipedia, Surname
- UWE Bristol, UK’s largest ever study reveals origins of 45,600 surnames (2016)
- Wiktionary, English surnames (individual surname entries)
