Surnames
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Surnames trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A surname is a small piece of history that people carry around without noticing. Many of the last names in an American phone directory began as a medieval job title, a father's first name, a nickname for a striking feature or the place a family came from, and the clues are still there if you know where to look. This quiz covers the names at the top of the United States census tables and the most common family names in countries from Ireland to Japan, along with the occupational surnames that medieval trades left behind: the makers, sellers, household officers and cloth workers whose jobs outlived them as names. It also looks at naming customs, from prefixes that mean 'son of' to laws that made family names compulsory. It suits family-history fans, word lovers and pub quizzers alike. Every question comes with a short explanation, so you finish knowing why so many people are called what they are called.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which surname, now a famous American food brand, began as a medieval nickname, 'kill hog', for a pork butcher?
Kellogg
Kellogg began as Kyllehog, a blunt nickname for a slaughterer of pigs, centuries before brothers John Harvey and Will Keith Kellogg made the name a cereal empire in Battle Creek, Michigan.
Q 02Which surname, shared by about 2.4 million Americans, has long ranked as the most common in the United States?
Smith
Smith was counted 2,442,977 times in the 2010 US census, about half a million ahead of second-placed Johnson. It also tops the list in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Q 03In which Nordic country do most people take a last name from a parent's first name instead of a family surname?
Iceland
Iceland still forms last names from a parent's first name plus -son or -dóttir, so a brother and sister end up with different ones and no family name passes down the generations.
Q 04Which Italian surname, also the name of a famous sports-car maker, originally described an ironworker at a forge?
Ferrari
Ferrari is the plural of Ferraro, a metalworker's trade name rooted in the Latin ferrum, 'iron', so Enzo Ferrari's racing cars carry the name of a village forge.
Q 05Which surname is shared by roughly one in five people in South Korea, more than ten million in all?
Kim
Kim, written with the character for gold, was counted 10,689,959 times in South Korea's 2015 census, about 21.5 percent of the population.
Q 06At which immigration station, a persistent myth claims, did American officials change newcomers' surnames?
Ellis Island
Ellis Island inspectors simply used the names on steamship passenger lists drawn up abroad. Families who changed a surname did it themselves, on average about five years after arriving.
Q 07Which name meaning 'lion' did the tenth Sikh guru give to all Sikh men in the late 17th century?
Singh
Singh comes from the Sanskrit simha, 'lion', and was required of Sikh men partly as a rejection of caste, because a shared name hides the family background that a surname gives away.
Q 08Which occupational surname originally described a craftsman who made and repaired wooden barrels, casks and vats?
Cooper
Cooper is the old word for a barrel maker, and the trade lives on in the cooperages that still build oak casks for whisky and wine.
Q 09Which surname, from a Gaelic personal name meaning 'sea warrior', is the most common in Ireland?
Murphy
Murphy anglicises Ó Murchadha and Mac Murchaidh, built on the Irish words muir, 'sea', and cath, 'battle', and emigration then spread it across the English-speaking world.
Q 10Surnames ending in -ian or -yan, such as Kardashian and Khachaturian, usually trace back to which country?
Armenia
Armenia's family names typically end in -ian or -yan, a suffix that once marked a father's or ancestor's name, much as -son does in English.
Q 11Which surname, the most common in Spain, is also the highest-ranked Hispanic name in the US census?
Garcia
Garcia stood 18th in the 1990 US census and climbed to sixth by 2010, edging ahead of Miller, then held that place in the 2020 count.
Q 12Which surname, borne by roughly a third of people in Vietnam, is the most common among Asian Americans?
Nguyen
Nguyen spread as families adopted it when Vietnamese dynasties fell, and in the United States it jumped from 229th place in the 1990 census to 38th in 2010.
Q 13Which occupational surname named the medieval craftsman who made arrows, a vital trade in the age of the longbow?
Fletcher
Fletcher comes from the Old French fleche, 'arrow'. The bow itself was the work of a bowyer, and the feathers on an arrow are still called its fletching.
Q 21Which occupational surname named the medieval tradesman who made and sold candles for homes and churches?
Chandler
Chandler is the English twin of the French surnames Candelier and Chandelier, and its earliest record is a Matthew le Candeler living in London in 1274.
Q 22Which occupational surname described a worker who earned a living cutting felled timber into planks and beams?
Sawyer
Sawyer names the trade of sawing wood, and Mark Twain later gave it to literature's most famous fence-painting schoolboy, Tom Sawyer.
Q 23Which surname, famous from the cover of an American dictionary, originally described a weaver of cloth?
Webster
Webster means weaver, a trade name that Noah Webster's American Dictionary of 1828 turned into a byword for American spelling.
Q 14The surname of Formula One champion Michael Schumacher is German for a maker of which everyday goods?
Shoes
Shoes were the trade behind Schumacher, the German twin of the English surname Shoemaker, and the name went on to be shared by racing brothers Michael and Ralf.
Q 15The Spanish surname López, shared by singer Jennifer Lopez, traces back to the Latin word for which animal?
Wolf
Wolf is the meaning behind López: the name meant 'son of Lope', and Lope comes from the Latin lupus, the root that also gives English the word lupine.
Q 16Which Norman-French prefix meaning 'son of' opens the surnames of novelist F. Scott and jazz singer Ella?
Fitz
Fitz comes from the Old French fiz, 'son', and Norman kings used it for their acknowledged illegitimate children, who were called fitz Roy, 'son of the king'.
Q 17Which occupational surname described a medieval worker who roofed houses with bundles of straw or reeds?
Thatcher
Thatcher is the roofer's trade name that Margaret Roberts took on marrying Denis Thatcher in 1951, 28 years before she became Britain's prime minister.
Q 18Which surname, shared by football strikers Gerd and Thomas, is the most common family name in Germany?
Müller
Müller is the German word for a grain miller, and it also tops the surname tables in Switzerland and in two French departments on the German border.
Q 19Powell, Price and Pritchard all began with 'ap', a word for 'son of', in the language of which country?
Wales
Wales turned ap Hywel into Powell, ap Rhys into Price and ap Richard into Pritchard, while ab Owen was squeezed into Bowen.
Q 20Which Jewish surname comes from the Hebrew word for a priest and often marks a family line of Temple priests?
Cohen
Cohen is the Hebrew kohen, 'priest', and bearing it often, though not always, indicates that a family's male-line ancestors served in the Temple of Jerusalem.
Q 24Which surname named a medieval cloth worker who trampled wet woollen fabric underfoot to clean and thicken it?
Walker
Walker described someone who literally walked on raw, damp cloth to thicken it, the same fulling trade that produced the surnames Fuller and Tucker.
Q 25Bob Dylan was born Robert Zimmerman, a variant of a German surname that names which skilled trade?
Carpenter
Carpenter is the meaning of Zimmermann. Zimmer, now the German for a room, once meant timber and is a cousin of that English word, so the name is literally 'timber man'.
Q 26The German surname Schneider, from a verb meaning 'to cut', matches which English occupational surname?
Taylor
Taylor is the match: both names belong to the person who cuts cloth into clothes, and the English one comes from the Old French tailleur, 'cutter'.
Q 27Which hyphenated surname did Queen Elizabeth II approve in 1960 for members of her family who need one?
Mountbatten-Windsor
Mountbatten-Windsor joins the royal house name to Prince Philip's adopted surname, and Princess Anne used it in her marriage register entry in 1973.
Q 28The royal House of Stuart took its surname from which hereditary office its founders held in Scotland?
High Steward
High Steward of Scotland was the family's hereditary post from the 12th century, and Mary, Queen of Scots, raised in France, adopted the French spelling Stuart.
Q 29Which surname, a nickname for an ancestor with red hair, is said to be the most common in Italy?
Rossi
Rossi is the plural of Rosso, 'red-haired', and its famous bearers include motorcycle champion Valentino Rossi and 1982 World Cup hero Paolo Rossi.
Q 30Which surname, derived from the name of the Roman god of war, is the most common in France?
Martin
Martin comes from the Latin Martinus, 'of Mars', and its spread is credited to Saint Martin of Tours, long the most popular French saint.