People have to keep up with the Patels rather than the Joneses when it comes to buying new gadgets, according to research by Pixmania.

The online electronic retailer looked at 12 months of sales figures for a range of the latest digital products and compared them to surnames.

It found that those with the surname Patel topped the chart, spending an average of £2,315 on MP3 players, flat-screen televisions and Blu-ray players.

Those with the surname Wilson came second and the Hugheses third.

Although Jones is the second most common surname in the country. it came in at position 16 on the list of spending.

Smith, another common British surname only made it to eleventh. The least likely to buy expensive gadgets were found to be the Davieses.

Ulric Jerome, managing director of Pixmania, said: “As everyone knows, keeping up with the Joneses is a well-known phrase believed to be based on an element of truth.”

The phrase keeping up with the Joneses is believed to have originated in the 1850s when Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones built a turreted villa in Rhinecliff, New York, prompting her neighbours to add turrets and wings to their homes.

"However, when you actually look at what people are buying, it's clear that the Patels and Wilsons both beat the Joneses hands down,” he added.

“Other families fall short of the Patels because they buy only some of the top-end products in the list or pick cheaper versions.”

He said the Patels would only settle for an iPod while other family names were more likely to opt for a cheaper MP3 player. He also said they would buy a Nintendo Wii and a Playstation 3 but other families were more likely to fork out for just one of them.