How Do Surnames Come About?

Question

How do surnames come about?
Like Roberts and Lindsay etc
Any help appreciated

Answer 1

In England many surnames are simply Anglo Saxon words for the jobs which people did. Fletcher, an English name, is the trade of the man who made arrows for the long bow. In addition to these trade names, there are also place names. Dolly Parton - her English surname is a place name in north west England. There is also a place called Parton in southern Scotland - so maybe the Parton's got up there as well. In addition to the Anglo Saxon names among the English, there are also Norman names such as Gilbert. Some English folk also have names of Viking origin.

Roberts is a Welsh surname, so too is Lloyd. Harold Lloyd was a Welsh American. Some Welsh surnames came about because of the need to distinguish one person from another. In old Wales, a boy might simply be named ap Rice - his father's surname super ceded by the word 'ap' meaning son. This eventually became Price. The surname Rice, still survives in the list of Welsh surnames.

Scottish surnames (and I'm not an expert on any of this) in many cases come from the Clan name - so that if you were born of the Clan MacDonald (or is it McDonald?) you would bear that name. Since you would be a Clan member, you would also be related to the Chief of the Clan - he surname would be the same as yours.

Irish surnames are very ancient. You will have to do some research in Irish sources. Guinness is an Irish name, a very famous name.

Answer 2

Surnames are means of "positioning" a person who would normally only be known to the World at large by a first name. Surnames fall into different categories: those which refer back to a forebear's first name (your Roberts is one of those), those which place someone geographically (Wood, Marsh and many others, not all so obvious, Hurst, for example refers to a small hill with a clump of trees on top and is Saxon in origin) then there is a large body of names relating to trades (Smith, Cartwright, Sawyer, etc. etc.) Lindsey might well be one of this latter kind being related to textiles.
Try googling, Wikipedia has a good article already quoted verbatim by a previous answerer (an acknowlegement would have been nice!) Good luck!

Answer 3

often related to their work, such as Tailor and Taylor, Smith, Carpenter, Fisher. Related to where they lived, either the village or some natural place. There are also many that indicate who their father was, such as Johnson, Robertson, Smithson. Surnames are a relatively recent phenomenon, previously they ahd only first names, unless you were of the aristocracy, and people were often known as John of ....., or some other name of ..... When things like taxation, census etc was started, they they ahd to ahve some means of distiguishing between the many Johns or Williams. just using the town names didn't work because there may be many johns in the town, so some other identification had the be used, and the name Surname is actually from Sires name, i.e the name of the father, so you had someone called John Smith, his son might well have been called John Smithson, but then it would have started to get more complicated if you kept adding sons, so they just passed the surname down the line.

Answer 4

People had but one name in early history - say John - this was give to the child at birth. However, around 1000 years ago the population expanded and so there may be more than one person named John. To distinguish one from the other a descriptive was added such as 'John the son of William' - in time this would become John Williamson. Surnames in general have one of four origins. 1. A family connection such as Williamson, Johnson etc. 2. A physical attribute Short, Long, etc 3. The place were they came from of lived. We all know Allan A'Dale from the story of Robin Hood - A'Dale means 'of the Dale'. 4. The type of work they did such as Fletcher, Carter, Butcher etc.

Robin Hood is said to come from the forest spirit Robin Goodfellow a name which was often said as Robin A'Wood or Robin of the Wood - this in turn became Robin Hood.

Answer 5

Depends on the country you're from, in most of the celtic countries such as Ireland and scotland last name related to one's ancestors, for example Mac meaning son of, and O' meaning grandson or descendant of. Thus michael the son of Patrick would be Michael MacPatrick.
In England the nobility followed this custom for a time hence families such as the Fitzallens, fitz also meaning son of, but the commoners tended to be known and namedmostly for their trades. When the English conquered Ireland they found the patronymic system too confusing so made it illegal for irish sons to take a surname other than that of their clan/tribe. Happily with independence there is a resurgence of this ancient tradition, amongst nationalists at least.

Answer 6

Well probably surnames like ROBERTS and LINDSAY came from an scottish or irish origins passed down from your ancesters but other surnames derived from the anglo saxon comunity who were craftsmen and which are still being called today.

Answer 7

Originally there were no surnames and they gradually came into being as the population grew. So to give you an example:- A small village where there were 2 people called 'John' for instance.
In order to refer to each John it started with John the Blacksmith or John the Archer or even John of such and such place. This led gradually to the introduction of Surnames as we know them today, most of which can be related to a trade or place.

Answer 8

The word surname is name prefixed by the French word sur (meaning "on"), which derives from Latin super ("over" or "above"), meaning "additional name." As early as the 14th century it was also found spelled as sirname or sirename (suggesting that it meant "man's name" or "father's name") due to folk etymology.

The use of family names varies among cultures. In particular, Icelanders, Tibetans, Burmese, and Javanese often do not use a family name — well-known people lacking a family name include U Thant (Burmese), Suharto and Sukarno (see Indonesian names), and Dilber (Uyghur, a Turkic language). Also, many royal families do not use family names.

In some cultures, a woman's family name traditionally changes upon marriage, although few countries mandate such a change. Other modern options include combining both family names, changing neither name, or creating a new name, e.g. combining letters of previous surnames or creating a pseudonym unrelated to the previous surnames.

In the 19th century, Francis Galton published a statistical study of the extinction of family names. (See Galton-Watson process for an account of some of the mathematics.)

In English-, Dutch-, German-, French- and Scandinavian-speaking countries, people often have two or more given names, and the family name goes at the end. (Occasionally a surname is called the "second name", which can be confused with a middle name.) In Spain, people have one or more given names and two family names, one from the father and one from the mother. In Italy, people may have one or more given names, no middle name, and a family name. In the Portuguese-speaking countries, people can have one or two given names and from one up to four family names taken from the father and/or from the mother.

Answer 9

Mac, Mc or O' means Son of. It comes before either the parents name or job title. eg MacDonald son of Donald or McGill son of the Gillie (or gamekeeper)
Son on the end of a name means the same but usually its a parents name first, eg Johnson John's son
Names that are also Christian names like your examples are the same as the Son of ones but they dropped the son bit at some point. John Roberts (son) and David (son of) Lindsay.
A lot of names are the job the person did, eg David (the) Thatcher.
A lot describe where they lived, eg David (from the) Woods
and some derive from nicknames eg David (the) Long
Hope this helps.

Answer 10

most are derived from association , the examples you give might originally have been something like john from Lindsay and john son of Robert .
another very usual history is that of a working blacksmith there was at least one in every town which gives us today the very common name of smith .
another example of this is names beginning with Mc or Mac which actually means son of .