Malta and Gozo home to 19,140 surnames
Mdina, Swieqi, Balzan and Sliema top localities for double-barrel surnames.
Mdina: where you can find the most persons with a double-barrel surname.
Report by Jacob Borg
The Maltese islands currently play host to 19,140 surnames according to the National Statistics Office's Housing and Population Census carried out on 20 November.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the top ten surnames made for familiar reading, being identical in rank to those recorded in the 2005 census.
3.3% of the population bear the surname Borg, followed closely by Camilleri and Vella at 13,090 and 12,192 respectively. The top 20 surnames account for 38.6% of the population.
The highest proportion of residents sporting a double-barrel surname can be found in Mdina, with 15%, followed by Swieqi at 8.3%, Balzan at 8% and Tas-Sliema at 7.7%.
The three most prevalent foreign surnames were Smith, Jones and Brown.
On the other hand, the majority of surnames such as Borg, Camilleri, Zammit, Galea, Micallef and Attard are found in the two largest localities on the island, namely Birkirkara and Mosta.
Should you wish to track down a Grech, Farrugia or Spiteri, Haz-Zabbar, Zurrieq and Zejtun respectively would all be good starting points.
Interesting trends also emerge among other less popular surnames. Mintoff, which ranks 144th at national level in terms of popularity, has the most common cluster in Ghasri, Gozo, while De Brincat is most concentrated in Munxar.
Such trends indicate that despite an increasingly mobile population, many surnames still have strong ties to specific localities, in spite of Malta's small size.
