Noms

The number of people in Britain with surnames like Cockshott, Balls, Death and Shufflebottom has declined by up to 75% in the last century.

A study found the number of people with the name Cock shrank (ouch!) to 785 last year from 3,211 in 1881, those called Balls fell (yikes!) to 1,299 from 2,904 and the number of Deaths were reduced (hooray!) to 605 from 1,133. Smellie people decreased by 70%, Dafts by 51%, Gotobeds by 42%, Shufflebottoms by 40%, and Cockshotts by 34%, said a professor at King's College, London.

"If you find the (absolute) number goes down, it's either because they changed their names or they emigrated." He said that in many cases, people probably changed their surnames as they came to be regarded as in bad taste. "It's because the meaning of words can change. Take the name Daft -- that as a term for a stupid is a relatively recent innovation." According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Daft meant "mild" or "meek" in Old English, whereas it means "foolish" today. "That's why there are names which people think aren't really very pleasant names and you wonder why they persisted as long as they did."

It turns out that the most popular names in Britain have not changed over the past 127 years. Last year, Smith, Jones, Williams, Brown, Taylor and Davies held the top five spots, in exactly the same order as they did a century ago. Also, between 1996 and 2008, the names Zhang, Wang, and Yang and experienced the fastest growth. Zhang rose by 4719%, while the Wang (only) grew by 2225%.