Commonly used surnames in the UK

Examining data from the 1881 UK census reveals that surprisingly little migration occurs in the majority of the working population. Smith remains the most common surname Smith remains the number one surname in the UK with over 500,000 people using the Smith surname in the UK. Today, as in 1881, these Smiths are still concentrated in Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, and most of the people with the surname Paxman in this area between 1881 and 1998 migrated from Cambridge to Romford. The new surname Patel is a new addition to the list of British surnames, which did not exist in 1881, but by the time computers were used in 1998 there were over 80,000 people with the surname, making it the 40th most common surname in the UK. The four most common surnames, Jones, remains second on the list of the most common surnames in the UK, with nearly 400,000 people using the surname. These are mainly upland farmers clustered in the Blaenau Ffestiniog area of North Wales.