The rarest surnames

[Coromandel]

There are plenty of league tables showing the most common surnames, but which ones are the rarest?

For England & Wales FreeBMD is a handy tool for judging how rare a surname is. The rarest one in my tree is NEWRUCK, for which FreeBMD finds just 40 BMD registrations, nearly all in the little corner of East Anglia where the name arose as a variant of the name NEWRICK. I am sure there will be other Brit-Gen members who can beat that.

Presumably there are some names that have become extinct altogether, either because they were embarrassing and were altered, or because the families died out in the male line. If this happened before 1837 then there could be names that aren't represented in FreeBMD at all. Can anyone find a "pointless answer", to borrow the catchphrase from a TV quiz show?

[Jonesy]

Here's one opinion:

http://www.
dolltoy.com/uk2.html

[Peter Goodey]

Here's an opinion from a discussion in 2001 in soc.genealogy.britain...

https://
groups.google.com/group/soc.genealogy.britain/browse_thread/thread/5386e10a8bd35227/b93c0ccb7c4cb0db?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22I+sometimes+think+that+NYLEVE+may+be+the+ra rest+surname.+%22#b93c0ccb7c4cb0db

Well, I thought it seemed pretty convincing

[Coromandel]

Jonesy, that's an interesting list. I guess some of the names on the list may be rare in Britain but less so elsewhere. In the absence of a directory of all 7 billion people on the planet it's going to be difficult to pick the very rarest name of all.

Peter, NYLEVE does sound a good contender. But if we're going to allow people to spell their names backwards there could be some very weird names indeed.

[Peter Goodey]

But if we're going to allow people to spell their names backwards there could be some very weird names indeed.

Ye Doog! What an idea!

[Peter Goodey]

The page contains advertising links.

As a user of Firefox with Adblock Plus, I was blissfully unaware of that.

[notanotherminer]

As a user of Firefox with Adblock Plus, I was blissfully unaware of that.

I thought that you possibly had an adblocker, Peter, because it's difficult to miss them without one. Just for info there's Findmypast, FreeBMD and a company that advertises no win, no fee, compensation claims. Having said that, I think Google changes the ads periodically.

[sturat]

My great grandfather relocated from Sweden to England and changed his surname from STENBOM to STENBORN in order to Anglicise himself. Quite rare, I believe. He had a daughter Minnie Anna who became a Rogers after marriage so the name ended there with his death.

[michaelpipe]

More useless (but interesting) info, apparently listing several endangered species in Britain:
http://
blog.myheritage.com/2011/04/rare-british-surnames/