FaNBI

A project led by University of the West of England (UWE) in collaboration with Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, Brno. This project is no more in development. The main focus is in a detailed analysis of surnames used in Britain and Ireland. Its database contains over 60,000 surnames. This project is the most extensive of its kind in Britain.

Most of the database contains surnames with 100 current bearers or more within Britain and Ireland. The surnames with 20 bearers or more in the UK listed in the 1881 Census are also included. You can find there many rare names as well.

Each entry includes the current and 1881 frequencies of the name, its main location, and its origin. The most frequent surnames are accompanied by a detailed investigation report of their linguistic origin, history, and geographical distribution.

The research is being carried out with the technical collaboration of members of the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, Brno. They have developed a software for editing and data management. Thanks to this software and the effort to unify different data formats, the data can be used also in historical archives and genealogical databases. It is expected to simplify the workflow for lexicographers.

The database is available (for schools and public libraries) as an online dictionary and was printed out by Oxford University Press.

The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland