English Last Names

Family name best used in the middle, especially since it was seen as the portly postman in Seinfeld.

A pretty alternative to Hadley, but perhaps a little too close to sound distinctive. Hedy would be a cool nickname, after legendary actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr.

This surname could work as a given name to honor an ancestral Jacob.

One of the few military ranks used as a name, as in Kennedy in-law and Peace Corps creator Sargent (born Robert Sargent) Shriver. There's also a more creative, artistic association with painter John Singer Sargent.

As surname names for girls become more popular, we could see Catesby catching on among style-conscious parents. Bonus: it easily shortens to the girlish nickname Cate.

Jameson has cracked the Top 100, so you may want to look towards greener pastures. Jacobson has the same appeal, and — trivia bonus — Jacob and James are variations of the same name.

More familiar from TV -- Rake, Leave It To Beaver -- than real life, and perhaps likely to stay that way, given the gruesome association with a butcher's knife. Cleaver was, for instance, the title of the violent mob movie Christopher wrote in the world of The Sopranos.

For football fans who have decided Peyton has become too feminine. Or they could look to brother Eli for inspiration.

Top 100 surname in the US and UK.

Likable English surname that is occasionally heard as a first name.

Marks is a surname that independently arose in several languages, most all of them as a patronymic form of Mark. Among Jewish families, Marks is typically a variation of Marx. Marx was a given name derived from Marcus that Ashkenazi Jews used as a Germanized form of Mordechai.

As a given name, Wheelock has been passed down to generations of the Whitney family — descendants of Eli Whitney, creator of the cotton gin. The first Wheelock Whitney — known as Wheels — was named after his mother, Alice Wheelock. His son, Wheelock Whitney Jr. went by Whee, and Wheelock Whitney III is called Lock.

Still heavily associated with journalist Barbara Walters, whose Jewish family changed their name from Warmwater (Warmwasser) upon emigrating to the UK from Poland.

You might consider Hedges for a first name if you find the surname on your family tree.

An original way to honor an ancestral Robert. Hobson is outside the Top 1000 but is among the fastest-rising names for boys.

This English surname offers an interesting mix of images: it sounds upper-crusty yet macho, and also conjures up the coziness of a wintery ski lodge. As a surname it is associated with the Massachusetts Republican Senate Minority Leader in the Woodrow Wilson era, Henry Cabot Lodge, who was the father of poet George Cabot Lodge and grandfather of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., who was ambassador to the UN and Richard Nixon's 1960 presidential running mate.

Preppier and less politically-charged than its source name, Sanders