Why is "Anderson" such a common last name, but I've never met someone named "Ander"?

by MisterBigStuff
Huruid

Andersson is an extremely common surname in countries such as Sweden, and Anders is an extremely common first name aswell. Andersson simply means Anders' son (or the son of Anders). A lot of people dropped the first "s" when migrating to North America, for example - the same happened to surnames such as Johnsson, Karlsson, etc.

pretty_meta

Common name variants on the proto-Germanic word "Ander"/"Antheraz" include Andrew, Andy, Andre, Andreas, Drew, Deandre, and Deandra.

Bear in mind this is unrelated to the Greek word "Anthro."

Edit: I thought proto-Germanic "Ander" and Greek "Anthro" were related but when I wrote this post I couldn't find attestations to that effect, so in my post I said the words were unrelated. Follow up research says the words do have a common root.