The name game: what does it mean to be a Smith

Continuing his series, Dan Antopolski considers the significance and ubiquity of popular surnames

Illustration by Tom Ford

In last month’s European parliament election, two MEPs called Alexandra Phillips were elected in the southeast region: one for the Green Party, one for the Brexit Party. Let us hope, despite these polarising times, that when they pass each other in the corridors of Strasbourg they laugh and shake their heads in affable disbelief. Could this dumb coincidence form the basis for a warmer political dialogue? In a movie, it could.

When my mother stood for Labour councillor in our local ward in 1990, she ran unopposed by other Antopolskis. In fact, on the doorstep, none of her constituents could ever remember her damn name but they knew she was the “anti-poll tax” candidate – Valerie Antipolltax – and voted her in on that basis. What can I tell you – East Anglia.

Actually, my ancestral name is Antopolskilinieroskovich but my father wanted us to sound more British so we became plain old Antopolski. Still, people manage to misspell it, each in their own way. Often they are panicked by the two Os as if by the eyes of a python and respond defensively with a barrage of surplus Os, firing them blindly at any consonant clusters that might remain until the word has doubled in length and halved the font size on my poster at the regional university. People called John Smith don’t have this problem – they have the opposite problem.

I knew a kid called Robert Smith whose dad was called John Smith. Robert told us that when his dad was a boy, a policeman had caught him scrumping apples. When the policeman demanded his name and received a truthful answer he boxed the lad’s ears for his impudent facetiousness.

Like the policeman, I have always believed that John Smith is the most common name for a man in this country. But it is actually David Smith, followed by David Jones, with John Smith scooping bronze. These three names account for some 6 per cent of the UK population – which is not true but has a plausibility that is itself telling.

Seven of the top 10 full names in the UK include the surname Smith. It is so common that it has become a marker for anonymity and hence pseudonymity – and not just for apple-scrumpers. Philanderers stereotypically check into a hotel under the names Mr and Mrs Smith when their companion is not their spouse – there is even a hotel website playfully named after this practice to suggest romance. I feel for conservative married couples whose name really is Smith, blushing at the smirking faux-innocence of the desk clerks. Equally, it must have happened that a serial adulterer has checked himself and his wife in under the name Smith through force of habit – and revealed himself.

Why are Smiths so ubiquitous? Names meaning blacksmith dominate national league tables across Europe: Smits in the Netherlands, Lefebvre in France, Schmidt in Germany, Kowalski in Poland, Ferrari in Italy, Kovacs in Hungary. What happened to the other professions? Is there something about being a blacksmith, smiting iron all day, that makes you more fertile than a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker? The only blacksmith I know is Fulliautomatix from Asterix. He looks virile enough and may have produced many offspring – and all within wedlock, for his wife is quite fierce and has access to heated tongs.

In any case, Smith is now the everyman. Morrissey chose The Smiths as a band name to evoke ordinariness. Winston Smith in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is all of us. Agent Smith in The Matrix stands for corporate anonymity. And in real life, Smiths are always bumping into each other, where the rest of us have to go out of our way.

In August 2000, the comedian Dave Gorman was nominated for the Perrier Award for his Edinburgh Festival show Are You Dave Gorman? in which he travelled far and wide to meet other people who shared his name. It had followed a drunken bet with his best friend Danny Wallace regarding whether or not there were “loads” of Dave Gormans, “loads” being defined with Dave’s charming trademark geekery as reachable within a 300- to 500-mile range from the preceding namesake. The show won awards in Australia and the US and produced a book and a TV series.

I told Dave that I intended to rip off his idea and do the same show with my own name, but that I might have to pad out the central quest with a few knob gags to make up the hour. There aren’t other Dan Antopolskis, there just aren’t.

How surprised was I last year to be contacted by a New York filmmaker called Jason Ressler, now resident in rural France. Jason was contacting me in his capacity as the manager of a septuagenarian country-folk musician from Augusta, Georgia called Daniel Antopolsky, who was equally surprised and delighted to learn of my existence. We all met up in London and compared notes on our origins – our ancestors hail from the same tiny town in Polesia – and we share a needle phobia, which in his case saved him from heroin addiction in the heady heyday of the outlaw country movement; he saved his friend Townes van Zandt from death by overdose. Daniel’s story is amazing and I won’t ruin it here, but aficionados of Americana, country, folk and blues should hasten to danielantopolsky.com and see Daniel live at the Black Deer festival near Tunbridge Wells tonight, tomorrow or Sunday. And if you should meet my namesake in person, please tell him I sent you. Just don’t ask him to tell you a joke.