The First World War And The Disappearance Of Surnames In France: A Trial Estimation Based On The Galton-Watson Model

The possible reduction of the stock of surnames attributable to the World War I (1914-1918) in France has not yet be explored. The aim of this work is to propose an estimate of this phenomenon taking into account the number of surnames disappearing according to the random extinction model described by Watson and Galton, the distribution of the number of children per households, and the proportion of surnames carried by a given number of bearers. Estimates have been based on the Ministry of Defense's electronic file which includes French soldiers killed during the First World War and on the Surname file produced by the Insee. While the human losses attributable to the World War I are unevenly distributed throughout the territory, showing a higher number north of a La Rochelle-Mulhouse line, the surname losses show a different geographical pattern with the numerous extinctions in Pyrenees, Corsica and Brittany. The extinction of surnames actually represents only a small proportion of all the surnames of the Dead for France (1,4%). By department, this observation is at odds with the Watson-Galton model which predicts a larger proportion of extinction due to the constitution of the two files, and the formulated demographic hypotheses.