Smit is aDutchoccupational 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 surnameSmith.[1]
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 wasde Jong, which had a frequency of ≈0.580%.[6][7]
An imperfect comparison can be made to primaryEnglish-speaking countries as of 1998 based on research by theNational 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]
Longley, Paul; Alex Singleton; Richard Webber; Daryl Lloyd."Smit".The National Trust. Archived fromthe original on 2008-09-05. Retrieved2008-03-05. 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. Retrieved2008-03-15.
Meertens Institute."Smit".Nederlandse Familienamen Databank (in Dutch).Meertens Institute. Retrieved2008-03-15.
Schulze, Lorine McGinnis (2008-03-04)."Dutch Patronymics of the 1600s".New Netherland, New York Genealogy. Olive Tree Genealogy. Retrieved2008-03-05.
This page lists people with thesurnameSmit. If aninternal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change thatlink by adding the person'sgiven name(s) to the link.
