Traditional surnames have gone extinct: Khan instead of Johnson
Traditional British surnames are a thing of the past
According to data obtained exclusively by the British press, traditional names in the country are gradually falling out of use. In 1996, the most common surnames among children born in England and Wales were Smith, Jones and Williams, with Taylor, Brown, Davis, Evans, Thomas, Johnson and Wilson among the top ten. Three decades later, the top 10 newborn surnames included Smith, Khan, Ahmed, Ali, Jones, Hussain, Singh, Williams, Patel and Kaur.
Although Jones is still in the top ten, his popularity has dropped by 43 percent, Williams, now in eighth place, also lost as much. Other surnames common in the 1990s now rank from the 11th to the 17th. According to the Office for National Statistics, the popularity of the surnames Khan, Ahmed and Ali has doubled, while Singh and Kaur, the traditional names of Sikh men and women, have grown at least fivefold.
Rob Bates, from the migration think tank, said the data showed "rapid demographic change" in the UK: "We risk our country being completely detached from its heritage and our society becoming increasingly fragmented as a result.".
The data covers births registered in England and Wales and excludes surnames occurring no more than twice. The data uses exact spelling, so variants of the same surname are counted separately. As the analysis shows, British surnames are becoming more diverse: infants had more than 23,400 surnames, up from 21,600 three decades ago, and for 1,000 or more infants had just 23 surnames, up from 57 in the 1990s.
The most common surname, Smith, was recorded in 7,276 infants at 4,102. It comes after data from the summer showed Mohammed remained the most popular name for boys born in England and Wales for the third consecutive year. In 2025, 5,957 boys were given the name Mohammed. Olivia took first place among girls for the fourth year in a row, while Lily rose to second place, and the former second most popular female name in 2024 Amelia dropped to third. Among the boys, Noah took second place, followed by Leo.
