Yes, former Bond girl Grace Jones was there… along with about 1,200 other people who share the same last name. In fact, the collective group of Joneses broke a world record Friday for the biggest get-together of people with the same last name. According to officials from Guinness World Records, the gathering in Cardiff, Wales more than doubled the size of the previous record-holder — a meeting of 583 people named Norberg in Sweden in 2004.
You wouldn’t think the previous record would be tough to beat considering Jones is the most common surname in Wales and is Britain’s second-most common, after Smith. In fact, the event was so popular (some Joneses traveled from as far away as New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Canada) organizers say they had to turn away a few would-be participants who didn’t bring the required photo identification. According to officials, in order to be part of the record, Jones had to be the participant’s legal name: no hyphenated names and no stage names were allowed.
If you are Jones-ing to see what unfolded at the record-breaking event, organizers say you will get your chance. The massive party was taped and will be turned a 30-minute documentary on the name, which is believed to be a derivative of John and has been traced back to 916. Historians maintain the name “Jones” is derived from the term “Son of John.” But, can also be attributed to variants of the name John, such as Jonah, Johannes, Ioannes, Yohanan, Johan, Jehan, Jan and Jen. The Welsh form was Ieuan, (which produced Evan), but Ioan was adopted for the Welsh Authorized Version of the Bible, hence the frequency of Jones as a Welsh family name.
According to UK and U.S. Census figures, Jones is the second-most common last name in Britain and the fourth-most common last name in the United States. In Wales, Joneses account for 13.5 percent of the population, and according to historians, in previous generations the names was so common that in small communities locals had to be distinguished by their trade or profession such as “Jones the baker” or “Jones the butcher.”