After clicking on "1998", tapping in your name and pressing "find", click through to "geographical location" - status can be found in the "social demographics" box

ARE you keeping up with the Pigdens? The 145 holders of this surname have emerged alongside the Fortescues, Pakenhams, Goldsteins and Mukherjees among the most socially exclusive British families.

The ranking has emerged in research by academics at University College London, who have assessed the social status of nearly 26,000 surnames on income, house value, educational attainment and health.

The academics have adapted their research to create a “snobs online” database that enables anyone to type in their surname and find out what proportion of the population is above them on the class ladder.

They enable, for example, the construction of a social league table of the England football team, which shows that Frank Lampard and Peter Crouch have high-class surnames that outrank 96% of the population.

The millions earned by the strikers Wayne Rooney and Theo Walcott may help nudge their surnames up the pecking order — currently both are ranked in the bottom 5%.

David Beckham’s surname has just 28% of the population below it, meaning his wife Victoria slipped down the name ladder when she gave up her maiden name of Adams, which outranks 61% of the population.

A glance at the cabinet shows that Tony Blair has outshone the mass of Blairs in the country, who rank below 86% of the population. John Prescott, who has risen from the working class to become a croquet-playing deputy prime minister, has a surname outranked by 78% of the population.

The database also allows users to check how many people share their surname and the parts of the country where they live. The social status of first names has also been analysed, although this cannot yet be checked by users of the internet database. The academics found that Rosamund, Piers and Giles are near the top of the pecking order, while Kayleigh and Dwayne have least cachet.

“People tend to mark themselves out as upmarket by choosing different first names from the rest of the population,” said Richard Webber, the professor of geography who led the UCL research.

Webber and his team have calculated the status of names by taking their postcodes from the electoral roll. These are then cross-referenced with educational attainment, employment levels, financial data and health statistics to calculate an average status for each name.

The results show the top 1% of names are dominated by a mix of traditional English names and more recent immigrants, often of Jewish or Asian origin.

The “poshest” group include Cadbury, the name of the chocolate dynasty; and Pelly, the family name of Guy Pelly, a close friend of Princes William and Harry. Tycoons with rare surnames, such as the Baring banking family and Lakshmi Mittal, the steel tycoon, are also in the top bracket.

The results show some traditional class characteristics have persisted. Many surnames linked to place names, often originating with landowning families, are near the top of the scale — they include Pakenham, the family name of the Earls of Longford and Lady Antonia Fraser, the historian.

Others have faded. Many of those which once belonged to Norman nobles brought over by William the Conqueror have, over the centuries, blended into the population. The upper-class-sounding Grosvenor — family name of the Duke of Westminster — and Mowbray are near the middle of the scale.

“When you look at Norman names they are hardly more posh than the average British name,” said Webber.

The name Pigden, despite its prosaic origins, is also in the top 1%.

Roger Pigden, 57, owner of a car repair business in Newbury, Berkshire, said he was surprised at the status of his name.

Pigden, son of a British Airways pilot, said he was “reasonably well to do” but added:

“I don’t have any important connection . . . I don’t mix with any famous people.”

Windsor, the assumed name of the royal family — formerly Saxe-Coburg-Gotha — turns out to be outranked by about a third of the population.

Common English names associated with trades such as Baker and Carpenter often appear in the top third of names, although Smith is much further down.

Because they are fewer in number, immigrant names are more likely to occur at either end of the scale — African and Asian surnames are common near the bottom of the table.

The league of first names, perhaps because parents have latitude to choose them for aspirational purposes, signal status more obviously. Names such as Camilla and Rupert retain their upper-class profiles, while those linked to passing fashion, such as Charlene, Toyah and Wayne, are nearer the bottom.

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