Smit

This article is about the surname. For the Dutch company, see Smit International. For other uses, see SMIT (disambiguation).
Smit
Language(s)Dutch
Origin
Meaningsmith
Region of originNetherlands
Other names
Variant form(s)De Smet
Smeets
Smet
Smith
Smits

Smit is a Dutch occupational surname. It represents an archaic spelling of the Dutch word "smid" for "smith" (metal worker) and is the Dutch equivalent of the English and Scottish surname Smith.[1]

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]

People

Arts
Politics
Sports
Other

Compound surnames

Šmit

  • Jože Šmit (1922 –2004), Slovene poet, translator, editor and journalist
  • Vlado Šmit (b. 1980), Serbian footballer

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

  • Dutch Census Digitization 1795-1971 Project. "Hoofdstuk II. het totale bevolkingscijfer" (Scanned page image). Dutch Censuses 1795-1971 (in Dutch). Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (through DANS Institute and in collaboration with NWO). p. 13. Retrieved 2008-03-15.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  • "Life Courses in Context. Project Plan. Section B: Census data". International Institute of Social History. 2007-06-28. Retrieved 2008-03-15.
  • Longley, Paul; Alex Singleton; Richard Webber; Daryl Lloyd. "Smit". The National Trust. Archived from the original on 2008-09-05. Retrieved 2008-03-05. Note that the full URL is http://www.nationaltrustnames.org.uk/Statistics.aspx?name=SMIT&year=1998&altyear=1881&country=GB&type=name[dead link‍], but use of any url except the base included here seldom properly resolves.
  • Meertens Institute. "Jong, de". Nederlandse Familienamen Databank (in Dutch). Meertens Institute. Retrieved 2008-03-15.
  • Meertens Institute. "Smit". Nederlandse Familienamen Databank (in Dutch). Meertens Institute. Retrieved 2008-03-15.
  • Schulze, Lorine McGinnis (2008-03-04). "Dutch Patronymics of the 1600s". New Netherland, New York Genealogy. Olive Tree Genealogy. Retrieved 2008-03-05.