With England now being such an international country, names from many ethnicities can be found. But when Henry Brougham Guppy published his seminal work on British names in 1890 (Homes of Family Names in Great Britain), the names had been little affected by foreign influx.
At that time, he discovered a little more than a dozen English names that were in use throughout the land. To qualify for this distinction, a name had to be used in at least 40 of England’s old counties. Here’s the list:
Allen
Brown
Clarke
Cook
Cooke
Hall
Harris
Johnson
Martin
Robinson
Smith
Taylor
Turner
White
Wilson
Wright
Cheryl Bolen's Regency Ramblings 