When did last names originate?

Answer 1

Ancient Sumerians. Try en.wikipedia.com

Answer 2

In the "olden" days, the family name was given down through matriarcal means. Leif Erickson was the son of Eric the Red. "Eric's Son." This still is followed to some extent through the asian cultures. Their last names are "posessive." The family name is said first. We might call someone "Yuen Woo" but in reality their name is Woo Yuen by western standards.

Today though, especially in the 19th century America, so many names were altered to "sound" American, its realy hard to find original last names without a lot of research.

Answer 3

Last names began as simply the trade or location of the family. Tom Baker was literally a guy named Tom who made the bread. Someone named Paul Wilson was Will's son Paul. Then people began to deviate the spellings.

Answer 4

Honestly I don't know, but I heard something about first names going with towns or the names of their fathers. For example, we could have Robert from Jamestown, and soon it became Robert James. Another example is Alexander, son of Tom. This soon became Alexander Tomphson. It's weird, but it's an idea.

Answer 5

K way back when like after the ice age everyone had clan names from differnt countries. Then evryone had there first name and then their last name was their clan name

Answer 6

People used to be referred to as "son of" or "john of ..." a name of a town or farm.
shortly after that - I believe it became easier to refer to the person as the trade they did ie "Tom the honeyman", "jake the butcher" etc.
that eventually shortened to "Tom Honeyman" and Jake Butcher" which eventually expanded to other variants.
For example, my maiden name is the polish word for "honeyman". My husbands name is derived from several forms of lumber or carpenter trades....
and on it goes.
now of course, there are thousands of variants to names

very interesting question

Answer 7

They usually go back to about the middle ages. Last names usually indicated what a person's profession or description was. So, someone whose last name is Miller may have had ancestors who milled grains, Carpenters may have ancestors who were carpenters. Someone whose last name is Brown may have had ancestors brown hair or someone whose name is short may have had short ancestors.

Answer 8

Lots of people said how but few said WHEN, which is what you asked.

And I dunno. But my guess is, after the agricultural revolution when people began to settle in villages and it became necessary to differentiate between John the fletcher and John the cooper and John the hunter and John the potter and John the smith...and the same applies in languages other than English. Let's guess about 3000 years ago?

Answer 9

Middle Ages...
the people were named after their job or where they lived....
(job) Blacksmith= Smith
(Location, this one's obvious) Yarnton= Yarnton

lol
hope this helped....

Answer 10

Napoleon made those who did not already have last names invent and use them.