Why are there so many American English names?

Americans have the most surnames in the world. According to American scholar Elsden Smith, in his monograph "American Surnames", he investigated the ins and outs of American surnames. British and American surnames have roughly four sources:

1, taken from the father's (or ancestor's) name, and the surname evolved from the father's (or ancestor's) name, such as John's son Johnson and Richard's son Richardson.

2. Surnames come from topography and topography. Like wood and Churchill. This kind of surname is the most, accounting for about 40% of the total number of British and American surnames.

3. From the nickname. Some ancestors had certain physiological characteristics and gave their families a surname. Such as brown, black, long and so on.

It was formed by the occupation of ancestors. Such as Smith (blacksmith), baker (baker), fisherman (fisherman), farmer (farmer), Taylor (tailor) and so on.

Of course, the above four categories all refer to the surnames of Anglo-Saxon Americans, excluding the surnames of immigrants from Germany, France, Italy, western Russia, Japan and Arabia. If all of them are added together, according to Smith's estimation, there are about 6,543.8+0.5 million different surnames in the United States.

Therefore, it is not surprising that they have many English names.