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.