If you go through the alphabet and come up with a last name for every letter...
You would likely discover your country of origin and ethnicity. The list of common surnames is organized by region - Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania and South America.
And within each category is a listing of the most common names by country. How many people in China have the name Wang/Wong? In 2007 there were 92,881,000. In comparison, there are 2,376,207 people with the surname Smith in the U.S.A. in 2000.
Smith turns out to be the most popular last name in the U.S., Australia, and Great Britain, along with many English-speaking countries. The last name of Wang means "king" in China. That can be traced back to royal families who took the name of Wang when their kingdoms fell under the Qin dynasty. The second most popular name in China is Li, and it means plum, plum tree or minister. It became a popular name as a result of 'gifting' the name Li to trusted allies and warriors. The practice of surname-gifting resulted in nearly 40% of Chinese people having the surnames Wang, Li, Zhang, Liu, Chen, Yang, Huang, Zhao, Zhou, and Wu.
I found a visual version of surnames - a map that shows the most common last name in every country. Here it is.
What would you guess about surnames in the Arctic and Antarctica? They are complicated jurisdictions. In the Canadian Arctic, Innuit surnames were ignored with the government using a number system for people. It finally registered surnames starting in the 1960s. I found no listings of common Innuit names.
What about Antarctica? Only 80 people live in Antartica in the winter and 200 in the summer. They live on King Georges Island. How many people have been born there? Wikipedia says at least 11 children have been born in West Antarctica. These children are automatically the same citizens as their parents, accounting for their surnames.
Here are some of the ferns along the living wall at Longwood Gardens.
