Does anyone know what the First Last name ever was? When did people first start using last names?

Question

Was just thinking today, after reading my Bible, who was the first person with a last name.....and what was it? Any help here would be appreciated!

Answer 1

I can't give you a timeline or a specific first last name. But I can tell you that different societies utilized last names at different times, once their communities became large enough to need them. Early on, they would have been simple but unofficial, such as John the shoemaker and John the taylor, later dropping the "the" and simply becoming John Shoemaker and John Taylor. Or Peter on the hill or Peter in the lane. Later, dropping the 'on, the and in" to become Peter Hill and Peter Lane.

Answer 2

Not many Biblical people have last names. The only ones I can think of have locations to probably make a distinction of where the person lived or was born....of Nazareth,...of Galilee,...of Cyrene.

Famous Egyptians, Mesopotamians and Greeks are generally known with one name sometimes with numbers...but of those are Roman numerals...Seti II ...except the Ptolemy line of Pharaohs. This numeric distinction could have been added by the Romans who admired Egyptians.

Family names were probably first used by Roman males but it was the written as the first name...confusing. Julius Caesar's real name was Gaius Julius Caesar...Gaius was the family name. Others are known by The same name as the father, mother or relative with...the younger tagged on. Pliny the Elder's nephew was known as Pliny the Younger. Both had other similar last names. Agrippina the Elder's daughter was Agrippina the Younger. These names were used as we attach the word "junior" today.

The Romans were great copiers. They are famous for taking ideas and improving upon them so I would guess that possibly the Etruscans could be the source.

The Romans' greatest foes were the Carthaginians. Famous general Hamilcar Barca maybe had a last name but his sons were known as Hannibal and Hasdrubal. Neither has a last name in written references.

A thousand years later the ending ...son or ...sen was used in Scandanavia. Leif Ericson was named after his father Eric the Red who was given his last name to match his hair color.

Answer 3

The first known people to acquire surnames were the Chinese. Legends suggest that the Emperor Fushi decreed the use of surnames, or family names, about 2852 BC. The Chinese customarily have three names. The surname is placed first and comes from one of the 438 words in the sacred Chinese poem Po-Chia-Hsing. The family name is followed by a generation name, taken from a poem of 30 characters adopted by each family. The given name is then placed last.

Answer 4

People used their name and a description of the place or family they hailed from and their occupation. Those things ceased being descriptive. I think the first people were in clans and so their descriptor was the name of the clan.
Mr. Smith must have been prolific. And since every language has a most common last name like Smith, Then lets say that Adam and Eve were Smiths, but it was in their language and meant Eden.

Answer 5

No one could know for sure. Last names would be based on parentage or occupation, for example, Johnson, (Son of John) and Baker, Taylor, Cooper, Smith, etc... Last names would only be needed in more advanced societies.

But the first person to use it? I imagine that when last names were thought up, many people at once used them, so searching for that answer is fruitless and impossible.

Answer 6

Surnames are generally derived from one of four sources: the name of the person's father (patronymic), the person's locality, the person's occupation, or a descriptive nickname for the person. When they were created, they answered one of the following questions: Who is this person's father? Where is this person from? What does this person do for a living? What is his or her most prominent feature?

In Europe, surnames began to be used in the 12th century, but it took several centuries before the majority of Europeans had one. The primary purpose of the surname was to further distinguish people from one another. In the 13th century about a third of the male population was named William, Richard or John *. To uniquely identify them, people began referring to different Williams as William the son of Andrew (leading to Anderson), William the cook (leading to Cook), William from the river (leading to Rivers), William the brown-haired (leading to Brown), and so on. Eventually these surnames became inherited, being passed from parents to children.

Answer 7

Well, I suppose there is no one who can tell you about the first last name but I know that Code Napoleon introduced by Napoleon (of France) is the foundation of the legal system in many countries today. One of the things this Code forced people to have or change their last name, it was so to say the official legal way to adopt a surname. You can read more here:
http://www.history-magazine.com/codenap.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code
http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/c_code.html
http://www.napoleonguide.com/codenap.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/code-civil-popularly-code-napoleon-or-napoleonic-code

I found some websites about last names, look here:

http://www.last-names.net/Articles/Anatomy.asp
http://surnames.behindthename.com/
http://genealogy.about.com/library/surnames/bl_meaning.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_name
http://names.mongabay.com/most_common_surnames.htm

Answer 8

Who really knows? What I have found in my reading is the writer identifying a person either to a town or a family or job skills. e.g. Paul of Tartus, Jeff Peter-son, William Smith

Answer 9

the way we can figure it as possible it may have been like this:
Adam The Man and Eve The Woman. (they were the first man and woman ever). Adam and Eve first names and Man, Woman as last names.