Happy families is a traditional British card game usually with a specially made set of picture cards, featuring illustrations of fictional families of four, most often based on occupation types.

[2] In Germany and Austria, the game is known as Quartett or Ablegspiel (in Upper Austria and Styria) and is not restricted to sets of four people, but covers other topics such as farm animals or tractors.

The game was devised by John Jaques Jr. who is also credited with popularizing tiddlywinks, ludo and snakes and ladders, and first published before the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Cards following Jaques' original designs, with grotesque illustrations possibly by Sir John Tenniel[4] (there was no official credit), are still being made.

The names of the family members are structured as follows, where X stands for a surname and Y for an occupation.