to adopt his wife's , but this practice is rare. Culture and prevalence In the United States, 1,712 surnames cover 50% of the population, and about 1% of the population has the surname Smith, which is also the most frequent English name and occupational name ("metal worker"), which is a suffix of blacksmith or other metalsmiths. Several American surnames are a result of corruption or phonetic misappropriations of European surnames, perhaps as a result of the registration process at the immigration entry points. Spellings and pronunciations of names remained fluid in the United States until the Social Security System enforced standardization. Approximately 70% of Canadians have surnames that are of English, Irish, French, or Scottish derivation. According to some estimates, 85% of China's population shares just 100 surnames. The names Wang (王), Zhang (张), and Li (李) are the most frequent. See also Dit name Genealogy Generation name Given name Legal name List of family name affixes Lists of most common surnames Maiden and married names Matriname Name blending Name change Names ending with -ington Naming law Nobiliary particle One-name study Patronymic surname Personal name Skin name Surname extinction Surname law Surname map Surnames by country T–V distinction Tussenvoegsel Irish surname additives Spanish nominal conjunctions Von Van List of family name affixes Patronymic Toponymic surname References Further reading Blark. Gregory, et al. The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility (Princeton University Press; 2014) 384 pages; uses statistical data on family names over generations to estimate social mobility in diverse societies and historical periods. Bowman, William Dodgson. The Story of Surnames (London, George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1932) Cottle, Basil. Penguin Dictionary of Surnames (1967) Hanks, Patrick and Hodges, Flavia. A Dictionary of Surnames (Oxford University Press, 1989) Hanks, Patrick, Richard Coates and Peter McClure, eds. The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland (Oxford University Press, 2016), which has a lengthy introduction with much comparative material. Reaney, P.H., and Wilson, R.M. A Dictionary of English Surnames (3rd ed. Oxford University Press, 1997) External links Comprehensive surname information and resource site Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs, French surname dictionary Family Facts Archive, Ancestry.com, including UK & US census distribution, immigration, and surname origins (Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press) Guild of One-Name Studies History of Jewish family Names Information on surname history and origins Italian Surnames, free searchable online