Thanks to Ressources Pour Le College I’ve learned about a great new web tool that will easily (and for free) let you map the origin of your last name and see how far its spread throughout the world.

The site itself is called Public Profiler/World Names. Its server is being overwhelmed at the moment so it might be hard to get through.

The reason why it’s being overwhelmed is a BBC news article about it that’s definitely worth reading.

It’s accessible to English Language Learners and to everybody else. It can be used in a variety of ways. I’ll be making it into a combination history/geography lesson, for example. Where are the names located and what are some reasons/events do you think got them to go there?

I’m putting the link on my Geography page.