Considering how some names were constructed, I would think (although this is from not being educated in how names evolved) that this could be fairly common...
- Relationships - Johnson (John's Son), Jackson, etc
- Occupations - Cooper (the barrel maker), Farmer, Hunter, Smith
- Variants on one of the above - Johnson, Johnston, Jonson, Jensen; Smith, Smithe, Smythe
I would surmise that you would see many common prefixes and suffixes being present among a large enough population of names.
This is, however, an interesting problem. I can see bringing this one out later on if any of my kids take an interest in programming.
--MidLifeXis
The tomes, scrolls etc are dusty because they reside in a dusty old house, not because they're unused. --hangon in this post