Canada’s Top 20 Surnames Dissected

UPDATED: January 1, 2013 with data from top cities.

Ever wonder what are the most common names and Canada and how many people are listed in the White Pages in Canada who match those surnames. I figure there are at least a few of you who would be interested in this information, so here it is.

This list of top 20 common Canadian surnames was pulled from Wikipedia and in the order listed there.




Surname Canadian Count Matched Search Page
Li 71,074 Li in Canada
Smith 61,302 Smith in Canada
Lam 41,402 Lam in Canada
Martin 41,474 Martin in Canada
Brown 38,303 Brown in Canada
Roy 35,665 Roy in Canada
Tremblay 39,343 Tremblay in Canada
Lee 28,343 Lee in Canada
Gagnon 30,429 Gagnon in Canada
Wilson 25,984 Wilson in Canada
Clark 25,358 Clark in Canada
Johnson 24,635 Johnson in Canada
White 22,726 White in Canada
Williams 23,713 Williams in Canada
Cote 26,781 Cote in Canada
Taylor 22,372 Taylor in Canada
Campbell 21,874 Campbell in Canada
Anderson 21,229 Anderson in Canada
Chan 20,995 Chan in Canada
Jones 21,384 Jones in Canada

Turns out that Wikipedia is pretty darn close in terms of the order of the top 20 surnames.

On a personal note, if you conduct a search for my last “Sieben in Canada” there are 412 of us listed in the Phonebook.

SECTION UPDATED

New for 2013, I thought I would expand the above list to see where those top 20 surnames rank in terms of some of Canada’s top cities.

Here is the data:

Surname Toronto Count Matched Search Page
Li 7,082 Li in Toronto
Smith 2,902 Smith in Toronto
Lam 1,805 Lam in Toronto
Martin 1,880 Martin in Toronto
Brown 2,323 Brown in Toronto
Roy 327 Roy in Toronto
Tremblay 57 Tremblay in Toronto
Lee 3,331 Lee in Toronto
Gagnon 71 Gagnon in Toronto
Wilson 1,351 Wilson in Toronto
Clark 1,397 Clark in Toronto
Johnson 1,000 Johnson in Toronto
White 1,068 White in Toronto
Williams 1,714 Williams in Toronto
Cote 66 Cote in Toronto
Taylor 1,152 Taylor in Toronto
Campbell 1,230 Campbell in Toronto
Anderson 786 Anderson in Toronto
Chan 3,190 Chan in Toronto
Jones 1,129 Jones in Toronto

Let’s take a look at the results for Montreal

Surname Montreal Count Matched Search Page
Li 1,977 Li in Montreal
Smith 429 Smith in Montreal
Lam 2,154 Lam in Montreal
Martin 1,635 Martin in Montreal
Brown 288 Brown in Montreal
Roy 1,806 Roy in Montreal
Tremblay 2,188 Tremblay in Montreal
Lee 391 Lee in Montreal
Gagnon 1,671 Gagnon in Montreal
Wilson 171 Wilson in Montreal
Clark 175 Clark in Montreal
Johnson 204 Johnson in Montreal
White 170 White in Montreal
Williams 232 Williams in Montreal
Cote 1,435 Cote in Montreal
Taylor 137 Taylor in Montreal
Campbell 138 Campbell in Montreal
Anderson 111 Anderson in Montreal
Chan 465 Chan in Montreal
Jones 167 Jones in Montreal

And finally the results for Vancouver

Surname Vancouver Count Matched Search Page
Li 1,981 Li in Vancouver
Smith 438 Smith in Vancouver
Lam 556 Lam in Vancouver
Martin 231 Martin in Vancouver
Brown 274 Brown in Vancouver
Roy 30 Roy in Vancouver
Tremblay 17 Tremblay in Vancouver
Lee 1,322 Lee in Vancouver
Gagnon 15 Gagnon in Vancouver
Wilson 207 Wilson in Vancouver
Clark 214 Clark in Vancouver
Johnson 219 Johnson in Vancouver
White 138 White in Vancouver
Williams 180 Williams in Vancouver
Cote 10 Cote in Vancouver
Taylor 204 Taylor in Vancouver
Campbell 205 Campbell in Vancouver
Anderson 186 Anderson in Vancouver
Chan 1,504 Chan in Vancouver
Jones 196 Jones in Vancouver

So the question is – how many people are listed with your last name? Enter your name below and hit “Find”, this will launch a new search browser and look in the right to see how many people match your surname.


Enter Your Last Name

Related Links:

Interested in seeing how popular your surname is in the United States? Check out the link provided to PBS.org.