Smit

Smit
Family name
Meaning smith
Region of origin the Netherlands
Language(s) of origin Dutch
Related names Smith
Smits

Smit is a Dutch surname deriving from the Dutch word for "smith" (metal worker), Smit. Therefore, it is the direct Dutch equivalent of the English surname Smith.[1]

Contents

Frequency of occurrence in general populations

Information for surname frequency in the Netherlands is limited by the end of comprehensive census taking in the year 1971.[2] The most recent readily available information is based on the 1947 census, for which both raw census data and surname frequency data have been made available to the general public. In 1947 there were 29,783 recorded people with the surname Smit,[3] while the general census provides a figure of 9,519,000 as the 1947 population.[4] Working with this data the frequency of the Smit surname in the Netherlands in 1947 can be calculated to be ~0.313% or ~3,130 of every 1,000,000 people.[5] By comparison, the most common Dutch surname in the 1947 data was de Jong, which had a frequency of ~0.580%.[6][7]

An imperfect comparison can be made to primary English-speaking countries as of 1998 based on research by The National Trust. In 1998, the highest frequency was observed in New Zealand as 97.18 occurrences per million people, or ~1/30th the rate found in the Netherlands of 50 years before.[8] Among the nations examined in the National Trust study, relative frequencies for 1991 were: New Zealand > Australia ≅ Canada ≫ United States > Northern Ireland > Great Britain > Republic of Ireland.[8] The substantial difference between Canada and the United States indicated in this series is approximately 3.5 fold.[8]

Notable people sharing the Smit surname

Listed here are people who share the 'Smit' surname, organized by birth year, to assist in assembling a view of the geographic distribution of this surname over time. Modern country names are used below rather than historical names. First letter country abbreviations are used when runs of a particular country's nationals appear.

Born before 1900
Born after 1900
Born after 1950

Compound surnames

See also

Disambiguation pages

Notes

  1. ^ Citation: Schulze, 2008
  2. ^ Citation: Life Courses in Context. Project Plan.
  3. ^ Citation: Meertens Institute: Smit.
  4. ^ Citation: Dutch Census Digitization 1795-1971 Project.
  5. ^ (29,783/9,519,000)*100%; 1% = 1,000 occurrence per 1,000,000 people.
  6. ^ Citation: Meertens Institute: Jong, de.
  7. ^ (55,256/9,519,000)*100%
  8. ^ a b c Citation: Longley, et al., 2008.

References