By Dipankar De Sarkar, IANS,
London : Researchers are to launch a massive ground-breaking study of the evolution of tens of thousands of British surnames, including those that originated in the Indian subcontinent such as Patel, Singh, Ahmed and Ali.
Led by linguists at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol, the 840,000 pound-project will create the largest ever database of family surnames in Britain, providing a snapshot of social history and mobility.
The four-year project, which will begin in April, will delve into the etymology of up to 150,000 surnames – discovering their meanings, origins and tracking how they have changed over the centuries – before making the database publicly available.
Researchers will not only study all ‘British’ names, including those of 19th and early 20th century immigrants but also work with scholars abroad to identify existing material on the 75,000 surnames that originated overseas and were introduced into Britain after 1945.
“There is widespread interest in family names and their history. Our project will use the most up-to-date techniques and evidence available to create a more detailed and accurate resource than those currently available,” said Richard Coates, professor of linguistics at UWE.
Researchers are expected to establish contact and cooperation with scholars in the Indian subcontinent, the Caribbean, Africa, China and eastern Europe.
The project will be helped by leading experts in those languages of the surnames – not only traditional ones such as Old Scandinavian, Anglo-Norman French, Welsh, Cornish, Gaelic, Yiddish but also more recent sources such as Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Chinese and Polish.
The researchers will use published and unpublished resources dating from as far back as the 11th century to show the origins of surnames: for example, the earliest surnames of the landholding classes tended to be descriptions or names of places, while small tenants and serfs would have names ending in an ‘s’ or a ‘son’, such as Roberts and Jackson.
“Some names can have origins that are occupational – obvious examples are Smith and Baker. Or names can be linked to a place: for example, the names Hill or Green (which related to village greens),” said Coates, who will carry out the research.
“There are also names which describe the original bearer, such as Brown, Short or Thin.”
With people of Indian origin thought to number between 1.5 and 2 million in Britain – the largest community of foreign settlers on the island – the researchers have their work cut out.
A study carried out in 2009 by the credit agency Experian found that while Smith and Jones continue to be the most common British surnames, Patel, Singh, Ahmed and Ali are catching up fast.
In the last 100 years, the number of people named Ahmed, Singh and Ali has risen by more than 1,000 percent each, while Zhang is the fastest growing surname, having risen by 4,718 percent in popularity in just 13 years.
According to a study of 500 surnames published in 2007, Patel is the 20th and Singh the 76th most commonly-found surname in Britain.
(Dipankar De Sarkar can be contacted at [email protected])