As part of his PdD research at the University College London’s Geography Dept., James Cheshire has produced a series of interactive maps of London show the relationship of common surnames to different London neighborhoods.

This map shows the 15 most frequent surnames in each Middle Super Output Area (MSOA) across Greater London. The colours represent the origin of the surname (*not necessarily* the person) derived from UCL’s Onomap Classification tool. The surnames have also been scaled by their total frequency in each MSOA.

He concludes:

The more you study these maps the more interesting, and perhaps complex, they become.  My final thoughts therefore appear a little contradictory. The first is that a surprising number of Londoners share the same name (especially with their immediate neighbours). The second is that despite the dominance of relatively few surnames at the top of the rankings, the further down the rankings you get the more you see of London’s population diversity.

(h/t boingboing)