Profiling Profiling involves finding out how many occurrences there are of names appearing once, twice, thrice and so on. From this, comes an estimate of the average number of names per unit, and therefore (perhaps) the size of the surname stock. However, this whole area is fraught with difficulties: the problem of how to determine a representative sample when the pool of surnames is far from homogenous, the problem of determining what the minimum size of the sample should be… Trevor Ogden, a leading researcher in this field, takes us further into this topic. Macro Level Sampling Trevor Ogden covers the mathematics of surnames at a national level, estimates of total size and surname extinction. Micro Level Sampling An analysis of surnames at a discrete level: parish, ward or town (in outline at the moment).