• Home
    • About the Guild
    • About one-name studies
    • Starting your ONS
    • Conducting ONS (videos)
    • Join Us
    • Guild Shop
  • Studies
    • Surnames A-Z
    • Recent Registrations
    • Registered Websites
    • Registered Societies
  • News
    • General News
  • Forums
    • Guild Facebook page
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • Conference & AGM
    • Seminar events
    • Webinar Events
  • Resources
    • Journal
    • Members’ Websites
    • DNA
    • Modern Surnames
    • Those Who Served
    • Newspaper Index
    • Guild Indexes
    • Pharos ONS Courses
    • Speakers
  • Help
    • Reset your password
    • Contact Us
  • Log In

Guild of One-Name Studies

One-name studies, Genealogy

Is your surname here?

    • 2,686 members
    • 2,390 studies
    • 8,458 surnames

Socio-economic

Geodemographics and surnames

Lots of potential for analysis here though I am not entirely convinced of the validity of this approach on the microscale.

“There is no formal proof and no ‘theory of geodemographics’ either, only the concept that ‘birds of a feather flock together.’ All the evidence is empirical..the systems are used simply because they do work..” R Flowerdew & B Leventhal, Under the microscope (Market Research Society symposium paper)

“Some of the most persuasive evidence that geodemographic mapping does affect perceptions is the condemnation of this work by other researchers.” D Dorling Mapping p13

Geodemographic schemes use census and private data to create a profile of a neighbourhood. These profiles serve as a likely indication of the area’s relative affluence, and the possible life-style of its inhabitants. A classification scheme is used to assign profiles into a hierarchical order. Two well-known geodemographic products are Acorn and Mosaic:

Acorn
– A Classification  of  Residential Neighbourhoods
  Mosaic
– (used by the credit agency, Experian)
UK 2001 Classification
(Main classes)
est %
Uk Pop
  Main classes 52 sub-groups
Wealthy
achievers
Wealthy executives
Affluent greys
Flourishing families
8.6
7.7
8.8
  High
income familes
Suburban semis
Professionals and wealthy people living in very affluent suburbs
includes satellite villages as well as suburbs
Urban
prosperity
Prosperous
Professionals
Educated Urbanites
Aspiring singles
2.2
4.6
3.9
  Blue Collar
Low rise council
Council flats
Least expensive owner-occupied housing; includes junior white-collar
Local authority or housing association tenants
includes municipal overspill estates
Comfortably
Off
Starting out
Secure families
Settled suburbia
Prudent pensioners
2.5
15.5
6.0
2.6
  Victorian
low status
Town houses/flats
Stylish singles
Wide mix of lifestyles for mainly young families and childless elderly
Lower and middle income- typically junior admin grades
Typically inner-city; well-educated occupants
Moderate
Means
Asian communities
Post Industrial families
Blue collar roots
1.6
4.8
8.0
  Independent elders
Mortgaged families
Owner-occupiers or sheltered accommodation: low incomes
Typically newly-built private housing; young families on town peripheries
Hard
Pressed
Struggling
families
Burdened singles
High rise hardship
Inner-city adversity
14.1
4.5
1.6
2.1
  Country dwellers
Institutional areas
Outside the commuter belt; wide range of lifestyles & affluence
A catch-all category for militayr housing, boarding schools, hospitals etc
Unclassified   0.3   Mosaic has recently been revised e.g. to accommodate changing affluence/lifestyles e.g. in the Asian community
Census variables: {Age, sex, socioeconomic status, Occupation,
tenure}
  Census variables: {Age, marital status, recent movers, household composition
& size, employment type, travel to work, unemployment, car ownership, housing tenure, amenities,
housing type, socioeconomic status}
Non-census variables: {County Court Judgements, Credit activity, Electoral Roll, Postcode Address File,
Directors, Retail accessibility. c 350 variables (census and non-census) in all
source
used for table %
  Photographs [link no longer available] that illustrate areas deemed to be typical in Mosaic.
    On average there are 3.1 different household level Mosaic types in a postcode : Only 22% postcodes consist entirely of 1 Mosaic type at household level : A maximum of 18 different types in a postcode (Source: Richard Webber)
More detailed classification for both schemes on their websites
Useful source; Presentations to the MRS Census and Geodemographics Group

Of the two, Acorn is the more usable to the surname analyst, as the profile assigned to a unit postcode is readily available.

A One-namer could obviously tabulate the current overall socio-economic status of their name. Although a minimum number of name-holders would be needed (100+?). If a name is still predominantly located within a specific region, such an analysis would divulge what percentage are rural/urban; associated with town centres, suburbs etc.

  • Ideally, the results should be plotted on a map – with an icon/ different coloured spot for each occurrence.
    (Genmap has this facility, though one needs to convert postcodes into grid refs)
  • Is there a correlation beween the distribution and the neighbourhood type?

This is such a new area, that I am wary that there must be pitfalls in applying a scheme to find the socio-economic value of a surname. And would such a profile have any validity?

  • Schemes such as Acorn and Mosaic are built around census data. In the inter-census period, an influx of new residents with education levels, employment and ages that differed from established residents, may cause a mismatch.
  • Classification schemes are one-dimensional. A unit postcode could actually encompass several lifestyles. A postcode may be split 55% : 45% between classes, and yet will be assigned to the former. Or it may be wrongly assigned. For example the postcode of my large employer (the only building in the road) is designated as low-income tenants, rather than institutional . Almost right- the flats are 2 streets away. (Incidentally, each census output area encompasses between 5 to 10 postcodes).
  • Though new schemes are being developed with fuzzy classifications, and a resulting contour-line representation.

Perhaps of more significance would be to define a group of names, and to perform the same profiling. This has been done for the names traditionally associated with one small region (i.e. ‘local’ surnames). The analysis (of this unpublished academic study) found that ‘local’ names were more associated with lower status profiles. and neighbourhoods.
To see what can be achieved in this area of name pattern analysis using geodemographics, then read Richard Webber’s Neighbourhood segregation and social mobility among the descendants of Middlesbrough’s 19th century immigrants (CASA Working Paper- 88)

Note:

  • Although unstated, this approach does rely upon the correct classification of a name (and that is contentious in itself), and the classification scheme seems to be based upon an analysis of modern-day forms and distribution, and not a historical approach. Although on the large-scale of this study, an occasional mis-classification is not significant.
  • The MAUP could also be a distorting factor i.e. when surname figures are being compared between different spatial areas in different periods.

This type of approach needs to be repeated for other parts of the country. The following are possible areas for socio-economic surname studies:

Above-average concentrations of financially privileged and socially excluded, in close proximity:- Camden, Haringey, Westminster
Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Stirling
High proportions of elderly people living in council accommodation Nottingham, Barking, Dagenham
Eclectic ethnic mixes (London postcodes) London -E7, E12, EC1N,W2,W3,W1BN17, London-N15,SE15,SE8,SW9,SW5,SW7,SW8, UB1

Source: J. of targeting, measurement and analysis for marketing (2001) vol 10, 1 p64.

Portsmouth would be an interesting case-study. It is unique in the UK as being an island city, with a strong-sense of place, and a clannishness associated with long-established families. See Phil’s Portsmouth study [link no longer available].

THIS IS A DEFAULT WIDGET WHICH SHOULD NOT DISPLAY. DO NOT DELETE THIS.

Modern British Surnames

ww1

  • Modern British Surnames
    • About the research
    • Distribution
      • Tools
        • Contemporary
        • Censuses
        • BMD Indexes
        • Spatial Analysis
        • Socio-economic
          • Households
      • Mapping
      • English names
    • Variance
    • Statistics
    • Bibliography
    • Teaching
    • Taxonomy

Other Guild Websites

You may find our other Guild websites of interest:

  • Members’ Websites Project
  • Surname Cloud
  • Guild Members’ records on FamilySearch
  • Guild Marriage Locator

Contact Us

Email: guild@one-name.org
Address for correspondence:
c/o Secretary, 113 Stomp Road,
Burnham, Berkshire, SL1 7NN, U.K.
Registered office address:
Box G, 14 Charterhouse Buildings,
Goswell Road, London EC1M 7BA U.K.
Call us free on:
UK: 0800 011 2182
US & Canada: 1-800-647-4100
Australia: 1800 305 184

Follow Us


  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • YouTube

  • RSS Feed

Guild of One-Name Studies Policies:    Privacy   Membership Conditions   Sales   COVID-19 Impact

© 2013–2021 Guild of One-Name Studies. Registered Charity in England and Wales, No. 802048.