Where do we get our last names from? no not our parents b/c it'll go back to our ancesters?

Answer 1

We got them slowly, at different times for differnt ethnic groups. Basically when a society became large enough that "John" could mean six or eight men, people started saying "John, Peter's son" or "John the Carpenter" or "John who lives by the River" or "John from Ruffingham" where "Ruffingham" is a village, or "John of the strong arms"

These became the surnames "Peterson", "Carpenter", "Rivers", "Ruffingham" and "Armstrong". Surnames usually come from a father's name, an occupation, a geographic place, a town/village or a physical characteristic. The English got them shortly after the Norman invasion, when William wanted to know how much he had conquered. He conducted a sort of census. That was around 1066.

The Swedes, by contrast, didn't start using family names until the 1800's, which makes tracing them tough. This might be four generations of Swedes before that:

Lars Oleson marries Maria Barbarasdaughter
Their son would be Rolf Larson.
Their daughter would be Elsie Mariasdaughter.
(They spell "daughter" differently in Swedish - somethig like "dotter" with dots over the "o".)
Rolf's son Erik would be Erik Rolfson.
Erik's son Ole would be Ole Erikson.

Another note - very few people were named "John Farmer", because everyone was a farmer. Calling John "the Farmer" would be like saying "There's my friend, Lim in that group of Chinese people. He's the one with black hair." Since they all have black hair, it wouldn't distinguish Lim from the rest.

Some people - Muslims in particular - still use "John, son of Michel", except they use different, non-Christian names and have just one word to mean "son of".

Some slaves took their former owners' names when they were freed. Some didn't; they picked a president, which is why there are lots of Black people with Washington and Jackson as surnames. Others picked a common surname that had nothing to do with their former owners.

This site:
http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/default.aspx?ln=
is free (there are advertisements on it, though) and may tell you where your 16 surnames came from. Most people can find out who their grandparents' grandparents were. You should have 16 of them, unless someone married a cousin.

Answer 2

It basically depends alot on your ancestors. Many immigrants landing on Ellis Island were given new names because either the person doing their papers could not spell or pronounce their name, or could not understand the immigrant pronouncing it. Or they were asked their occupation for instance John the roofer became John Rover. However many Indian names come from the tribe or again what they did. People whom are adopted take the name of their adoptive parents therefore they are almost untraceable as far as their heritage.

Answer 3

Generally, the origin of last names came from the trade that the person did, or from a location where the family lived... Through the years, names have evolved and spellings have changed...

Answer 4

Well if your black (like me) you carry the name of your great great or even great grandparents slave master. This is why muslims change their last names to X (ex. Malcolm X) To carry the last name you were born with means you are carrying a slave name, and we are free so X marks the spot.

Answer 5

it depends on your family, like mine, came from a town in england.