In South Korea, some 20 million people share just five surnames. Every one of Denmark’s top 20 surnames ends in ‘-sen’, meaning ‘son of’, a pattern that is replicated across Scandinavia. British surnames have never favoured such neatness, and we can be grateful for that. While we may have lost such delightfully chewy names as Crackpot, Crookbones and Sweteinbede, the average city will still provide its Slys, Haythornthwaites, and McGillikuddys.
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Susie Dent is an English lexicographer and adjudicator on Channel 4’s Countdown.
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