The Great Canadian Surname Thread

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Doug

No one every made that claim. Calgary's European population is very fragmented, probably more so than in other parts of the country, so there is more diversity in last names. The homestead boom of the early 1900's drew people to the Prairies from all over Europe and the US, not just from the British Isles or France. Plus Alberta has had a very mobile population since the 1950's, adding the mix.

Read what Rusty said originally - he said that the most common surnames in Calgary were names like Grewal and Nguyen, and alluded that European names weren't that common.

As for the groups you named - Europeans, Americans... would they not have mostly had European surnames at that time? Yaremchuk is a European name. As are Perkio or Peplinski.

[dsim249]

For SK, a lot of those Mennonite names like Manitoba and Alberta.

Friesen, Penner, Wiebe, Enns, Reimer, Kroeker, Loewen, Thiessen, Dueck, Neufeld, Toews, Dyck, Epp

I have friends that bear all of these names, except for Kroeker.

The most common last name to me personally is probably Neufeld.

[Acajack]

Driving around Gatineau I was reminded of this interesting local name:

Schingh

Everybody who has this name seems to be French Canadian, even though it almost sounds like a name from India (pretty close to Singh).

And a few names from Quebec that one might say were ''separated at birth''.

Besner - can be an old stock Québécois French Canadian or an Anglo-Jewish name in Montreal

Montour - borne by both Haitians and... Mohawks!

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Driving around Gatineau I was reminded of this interesting local name:

Schingh

Everybody who has this name seems to be French Canadian, even though it almost sounds like a name from India (pretty close to Singh).

And a few names from Quebec that one might say were ''separated at birth''.

Besner - can be an old stock Québécois French Canadian or an Anglo-Jewish name in Montreal

Montour - borne by both Haitians and... Mohawks!

Interesting that a few popular Canadian surnames are shared between the so-called "old stock" or "charter groups" and Canada's more common non-European visible minorities.

Gill can be English, Scottish, or Punjabi.

Roy can be French, English or Scottish (ultimately of Norman origin), and from the Indian subcontinent.

Lee can be English, Irish, Korean or Chinese.

[Acajack]

Gill can also be a French Canadian name.

[lrt's friend]

What would be interesting would be surnames that were anglicized both in spelling and pronunciation. I have even heard many names of Irish origin whose pronunciations have been altered.

A well known street in Ottawa is Heron Road. Old records had it spelt Herron and I have heard it pronounced by older people as Her - un whereas everybody now pronounces it as Hair - in . I know a descendant of this family and he uses the current pronunciation but had heard of the older pronunciation as well.

I was also shocked to hear Blais pronounced as Blah locally, something I expect that will revert back to the traditional French pronunciation as the older generation dies off.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I was also shocked to hear Blais pronounced as Blah locally, something I expect that will revert back to the traditional French pronunciation as the older generation dies off.

How would you pronounce Blais yourself?

It's sometimes hard to spell out the sound of French names in English, but if I give it a shot, in French it's always "bleh" and rhymes with "meh" (best example I could find). The ending sounds like the "ea" in "head".

A lot of anglophones seem to pronounce it "blay". I believe that's the way Ottawa city councillor Stephen Blais says his last name when speaking in English (his native language).

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

How would you pronounce Blais yourself?

It's sometimes hard to spell out the sound of French names in English, but if I give it a shot, in French it's always "bleh" and rhymes with "meh" (best example I could find). The ending sounds like the "ea" in "head".

A lot of anglophones seem to pronounce it "blay". I believe that's the way Ottawa city councillor Stephen Blais says his last name when speaking in English (his native language).

To me it's "bleh" unless I know it should be "blay". I have never heard "blah".

[begratto]

Originally Posted by Acajack

How would you pronounce Blais yourself?

It's sometimes hard to spell out the sound of French names in English, but if I give it a shot, in French it's always "bleh" and rhymes with "meh" (best example I could find). The ending sounds like the "ea" in "head".

A lot of anglophones seem to pronounce it "blay". I believe that's the way Ottawa city councillor Stephen Blais says his last name when speaking in English (his native language).

I'd say that "ais" in Blais sounds like the "E" in Estonia, or in estimate.

Almost like "blessed", without the "ssed" part.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

To me it's "bleh" unless I know it should be "blay". I have never heard "blah".

"Blah" sounds maybe like someone who doesn't speak French trying too hard to say it the French way, but doesn't really know how to.

[Pinion]

.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Acajack

How would you pronounce Blais yourself?

It's sometimes hard to spell out the sound of French names in English, but if I give it a shot, in French it's always "bleh" and rhymes with "meh" (best example I could find). The ending sounds like the "ea" in "head".

A lot of anglophones seem to pronounce it "blay". I believe that's the way Ottawa city councillor Stephen Blais says his last name when speaking in English (his native language).

As an Anglophone, to be honest, more likely as "blay". The "blah" pronunciation is a very localized, old rural pronunciation relating to one extended family that has a road named in their honour. The surrounding rural population was mostly Irish Catholic and Protestant.

[Acajack]

A few pronunciations from Quebec. Note when I exaggerated the number of Rs it's to emphasize the French/Latin rolled R. Symbolized by an upside down R in the phonetic alphabet.

Harvey = Ahrr-vay

Smith = Smit

Ross = Rrr-uhss

Maloney = mahl-oh-nay

Ryan = rrreye-uhn

Whissell = whee-ssell (as opposed to "whistle")

Kennedy = kenne-day

Source: multiple people I've known with these names.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

As an Anglophone, to be honest, more likely as "blay". The "blah" pronunciation is a very localized, old rural pronunciation relating to one extended family that has a road named in their honour. The surrounding rural population was mostly Irish Catholic and Protestant.

That's Blais Road down near Leitrim in rural southern Ottawa?

[Acajack]

Kelly = kell-ay

M(a)cKenzie = mac-ken-zay

Also, Miller is often pronounced "mee-lairrr". There is also the surname Millaire which may be a francization of Miller.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Acajack

That's Blais Road down near Leitrim in rural southern Ottawa?

Yes.

Another related to a lumberyard that was in business for 40 years in the same general area. Daoust was always pronounced as Doe relating to this business and the associated family while everybody knew that the correct pronunciation of this name was quite different. I don't know how this came to be, but perhaps, because the community was mainly Anglophone and had a hard time pronouncing the name properly.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Yes.

Another related to a lumberyard that was in business for 40 years in the same general area. Daoust was always pronounced as Doe relating to this business and the associated family while everybody knew that the correct pronunciation of this name was quite different. I don't know how this came to be, but perhaps, because the community was mainly Anglophone and had a hard time pronouncing the name properly.

I've heard both "doe" and "dah-oo" for Daoust/D'Aoust from people who were actually francophones. Though "dah-oo" is by far the most common way to say it.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Acajack

A few pronunciations from Quebec. Note when I exaggerated the number of Rs it's to emphasize the French/Latin rolled R. Symbolized by an upside down R in the phonetic alphabet.

Harvey = Ahrr-vay

Smith = Smit

Ross = Rrr-uhss

Maloney = mahl-oh-nay

Ryan = rrreye-uhn

Whissell = whee-ssell (as opposed to "whistle")

Kennedy = kenne-day

Source: multiple people I've known with these names.

I used to comment with a Francophone friend (who was very bilingual) about pronouncing Harold as 'Ahrr-old' (removing the H) while pronouncing Albert as 'Hal-burt' (adding an H) .

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Gill can also be a French Canadian name.

So Gill can be an all-Canadian name (okay, so that goes against the spirit of Canadian identity set out by Pierre Trudeau in his quote about how there's no such thing as an "all-Canadian boy or girl", which some took to be a foil to the idea of the "all-American" archetype, but whatever ) -- it's got the possibility of being English, French, Scottish and thus could pass for any of the "charter" or "old stock Canadian" surnames, in addition to belonging to a visible minority (Punjabi) that's also represented in Canada.

Originally Posted by Pinion

Official most common surnames in Vancouver:

1. Lee
2. Wong
3. Chan
4. Smith
5. Kim
6. Chen
7. Gill
8. Li
9. Brown
10. Johnson

Disclaimer, this list is 10 years old... so almost as old as this thread.

Probably the mix of the Anglo-Celtic (English, Irish) Lees and the East Asian Lees (Chinese, Korean) puts Lee on the top of the list.

Is someone with the name "Lee" (assuming no other background info) more likely to be assumed to be white or East Asian these days in Canada?

My impression is that I think of a Canadian "Lee" as being an Asian Vancouverite or Torontonian but an American "Lee" as being a white/European-descended Southerner.

[Pinion]

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