Does your surname link you to royalty – or does it mark out your ancestors as fools, philanderers – or just plain ugly?

Many of us like to imagine we are distantly related to royalty and that like Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries we will be whisked away to live in a castle. Some celebrities are known to have a ...

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England has so many surnames that it's difficult to pinpoint where they actually originated. The most common English surnames are usually Smith, Jones, Williams and Taylor. It's unsurprising that many ...

English Heritage has revealed the meaning of the surnames of England's star players as the Three Lions prepare to make history this weekend. England captain Harry Kane's family name is most common in ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio – It's no surprise Smith is the most common S last name in Cuyahoga County. But what about the rest of the alphabet? Cleveland.com took a look through the Cuyahoga County voter rolls ...

In most societies, surnames are passed on from father to son, just like the Y chromosome. This suggests that men who share the same surnames may have Y chromosomes that are related to one another. A ...

In most human societies, surnames are paternally inherited, that is, they pass from a father to all of his children. The Y chromosome is also inherited paternally, but it is passed only from father to ...

In most societies, surnames are inherited in the same way as the male-specific region of the Y chromosome, which creates a correlation between the two. However, several factors will decrease this ...