Where do we get our surnames from?

Question

Surely some names must have been made up at some point. Like drinkwater and winterbottom. They can have been because someone was named after their father/grandfather because who has the first name Drinkwater?

Answer 1

last names are mostly created from back in the day (hundreds of years ago) someone creating a nickname for your great ansestor. A name like Drinkwater would be because your ancestor really enjoyed drinking water or could drink a lot of water and people gave them that nickname which eventually became their last name.

Answer 2

Generally speaking, a surname is the last name of your father. Though, it can be the last name of your mother, if your father didn't sign the birth certificate.
The bulk of European surnames in countries such as England and France were formed in the 13th and 14th centuries. The process started earlier and continued in some places into the 19th century, but the norm is that in the 11th century people did not have surnames, whereas by the 15th century they did.
In Ireland, surnames developed naturally out of a more ancient system of clan and sept names.
Among the humbler classes of European society, and especially among illiterate people, individuals were willing to accept the mistakes of officials, clerks, and priests as officially bestowing a new version of their surname.
A lot of surnames were derived form the profession of a person, like Weaver, Tanner, Baker, Miller.....and this holds true across many different nationalities..German, French, etc.
Other cultures, like the Nordic cultures, didn't begin to use surnames until quite recently, the last 200 hundred years or so, I think. Thats why there are names like Ranarsdaughter, or Eriksson.
You should look up the history of surnames, because oriental cultures have a completely different way of naming! Here is a good site....

Answer 3

Most surnames developed from a description of the person or the location he lived in. A good example for the first instance would be a name like Redman. He was probably a person with red hair or skin that became reddened easily. An example of the second instance would be a surname in my genealogy, Templeton. We know that they came from an area in Scotland where a very early church was located and that church was built by the Templars. Another name in my genealogy is Kistler. The meaning of it in German is someone who builds trunks and boxes. When the slaves were freed at the end of the civil war, they were allowed to name themselves. Many took the name of their previous owner but many chose the name of a famous person like Washington. We are a white family but there is a family of African Americans in my town who have the same last name. In researching our genealogy and tracing the migration of our ancestors to here in the center of the country, we found that both families moved from S. Carolina to Arkansas and then here to Kansas. We haven't been able to prove our connection but we do have proof from an old will that our family owned slaves. We are still working on our family histories but expect to find we owned them. Now, that's a very strange feeling. I hope this has been of some help to you.

Answer 4

A family name, surname, or last name is the part of a person's name that indicates to what family he or she belongs. Until the 12th century, most people throughout the world did not use or have a family name, and they were called by the single name they had (which was called a "first" or "given name" only after family names came into use).

One of the most accepted theories for the origin of surname use attributes their introduction to the Normans and the Domesday Book of 1086. The use of surnames gradually became an accepted practice throughout Western Europe in the Middle Ages.

In parts of the world, family names did not appear in common use until the 17th to 19th centuries, and they are unused in some cultures even today.

In most cultures in Africa and Asia, the family name is typically spoken and written first when referring to an individual. This order is often erroneously called the Eastern order because Europeans are most familiar with the examples of China, Japan and Korea.

In most Western cultures, the family name is today given last, giving rise to the term last name for family name. However, even in some Western countries, the family name is used last only in writing and formal speech, and the inverse order is still very common in normal everyday speech. In addition, many if not most Western cultures originally used the family name first even in writing and formal speech.

So in fact, the majority of the world's cultures still use the family name first.

In countries that use family names, these are most often used to refer to a stranger in a formal setting, often with the use of a title such as Mr. or Mrs. (or equivalent).

The first name, given name, or personal name is the one used by friends, family, and other intimates.

Answer 5

Surnames come from a number of sources. Occupation is a very popular one. So many people have the name "Smith" because every town had a black smith. They also come from where you live. Someone in my family has the last name "Poland" which is an English name meaning someone who dwells near a pond or river. It can also come from the fathers first name, like McDonald, meaning son of Donald.

Answer 6

A lot of times they were based on your profession. Miller, Baker, Smith, etc told what the person did. Other names were based on who your father was. Johnson means this guy is the son of John. Still over names were based on where you lived. Green could have meant that you lived near the village green. Hill meant, well I think you can figure it out. Not everyone named Smith, however, all came from one particular person named Smith. There were blacksmiths all over the place, so there was more than one person named Smith, so not all smiths are related.

Answer 7

I goes back to the days when taxes were first collected. If a guys name was John the Baker, he became John Baker. Surnames were based on a persons occupation.

Answer 8

Years and years ago it was tradition to give a child the fathers name as the family name, the mothers maiden name as the middle name and the surname was usually up for grabs, i.e. the favorite uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers, grandparents etc.

Answer 9

Nobody knows for sure.

Some person's surname could go back much further than anothers. Some could be made up by the people, some could be given to them by other people that made it up.

But really, nobody can trace back and find out exactly how they originated. Sorry =(

Answer 10

Well, mostly like if your name is Gardner, for instance, somewhere along the line you had a gardener in your family.

And if you are Johnson, there was a John way back when who started it all for your family.