For the collective: Is there one surname (last name) that has been involved in more criminal activity than any other?

Bush

Gotti comes to mind. He had his fingers in MANY pies over the years.

I think historians would answer Hitler or Stalin.

It just about has to be Smith, doesn’t it?

Involved in more activity or *caught & convicted” in more activity? As it is evident from the various prison and court stats that there is a racial bias in convictions, it will more than likely be the “Smith” equivalent of the predominant racial prison population demographic.

I was thinking Smith too. So damn many of ‘em. (I can say that because I’m one of them. I’m not worried about you knowing that because there are so damn many of them.)

By numbers it would have to be something Chinese, if you are thinking on a global scale. In fact, by sheer numbers alone, it is Chang with approximately 100 million people bearing that last name.

Otherwise, just pick the most common last name in any particular culture and odds are more criminals will have that last name than any other. Smith is a possibility, but I have been places where the local equivalent is Nguyen or Wang or Garcia or Begay or Müller or Sato or Kim or Chhetri or Patel or whatever the most common last name would be.

Peterson. . . three men murdered their wives Scott, drew and Michael peterson not related as far as I know. Maybe three doesn’t make it synonymous with murder or crime but I told myself i would never marry a man with the last name peterson.

I think “Doe” has to be near the top of the list.

“Doe” is more likely to represent deceased victims of the Smiths, Changs, etc.

I guess I was thinking along the lines of a family line thing….father to son, etc.

Hitler. His crimes are so numerous, so even if all other people with the last name Hitler were law-abiding…

One could say that of just about any murderous despot. For example, a simple surname search in an on-line directory found 31 entries for the surname Hitler in the US alone in July 2009. A similar search just conducted found that their are 7166 people with the last name “Amin” in the United States. Who would realistically want to claim relationship with Idi Amin? And, of course, there is the Bin Laden family.