what kind of weird ancestry do you think people with food and color last names originate from?

Question

Examples:ann curry-newsreporter, kevin bacon-actor, vanna White-wheel of fortune letter toucher, condoleeza rice, jack black-actor & clint black-singer, charlie brown-comic book character, etc. list any famous names that aren't on the list that you can think of & also your opinions/theories as to how, why, where these people get their last names from? explain in your own words.no links.thanks.

I was looking for personal theories like charlie brown's ancestors probably made their own brownie recipe that turned into a successul brownie business or jack black's ancestors were gambling addicts, who loved to play roulette and always placed their bets on a black number, instead of red.so far, interesting info in your answers:)

Answer 1

In western Europe, surnames emerged around the end of the 10th century. Usually a surname referred to an individual, and was descriptive. "Black" would refer to hair colour, for example. "Lee" would be someone living in a sheltered place. "Smith" coluld be a blacksmith, or someone who fabricated something. "Baxter" =baker; "Cooper" = a barrel maker; "Finch" or "Little"= a small person; "Boivin"= someone who drinks wine {perhaps to excess?} "Heward" =a person in charge of the hay.
There were many occupational names, and many names that were jokes or puns about the person so named.
After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, names were recorded in the "Domesday Boke" which renewed the standardization of surnames connected with particular families--a practise which had been more or less lost with the fall of the Roman Empire.
In Scandinavian countries, early converts to Christianity took the names of apostles and saints as surnames. Some of these are almost unchanged in Scotland: Paul, Stephen, Andrew, Matthew. Local Scottish names indicated "son of" or "daughter of" with "Mac" "Mc" "Na" or "Ni" but names didn't necessarily indicate blood relations, but rather membership in a clan or a sept.
Place names are also a rich source of historic surnames-by-association. In more recent history, slaves were often referred to by their master's surname--and this was not entirely inappropriate since DNA testing can now demonstrate that many of the slave owners took advantage of what they regarded as their property.

Answer 2

In my own words...
Over here in genealogy, we don't work with theories or opinions. Tracing someone's ancestry is based in a methodical search for factual and verifiable information.
Before anyone can do that, it is necessary to pry persons loose from certain pre-conceptions or thinking about surnames. One of those is that a persons ancestry is the same as where their last name originated (or what it means). One example would be Ms. Rice... her surname might be of German origin, or any other country. Ms. Rice would not necessarily have a drop of German blood in her ancestry. If Mr Bacon actually traced his ancestry, it is conceivable that his gr grandfather was adopted, and his actual ancestry has nothing to do with that surname at all.
Last, any surname is simply from a father (and not even then, in all cases). Ancestry is a composite of ALL ancestors.. ie 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 gr grandparents, ad infinitum. All of these persons will have different surnames and more important, different actual histories, origins, cultures, so forth. Thus, when one starts evaluating their ANCESTRY, they quickly find that the surname they happen to carry is only one small piece of the influences that make them a person.
Etymology of surnames is the study of where and how names came to be. It is a valid and interesting topic in itself, but not nearly as related to genealogy as most new persons believe. Every day, in this section, we watch as people struggle to find their ancestry and get bogged down by confusion between the two topics.
In short.. each of these people get their names from their fathers. No theory needed at all. Their ancestry is totally independent of their surname.

Answer 3

If someone grew it, made it or harvested it, they might get a food surname, especially if it was rare. There aren't many people named "Bread" or "Wheat", although there are lots of Bakers. There aren't many people surnamed "Farmer", either, because 90% of our ancestors were farmers. All surnames came from some attempt to distinguish between people with the same given name, so many of them refer to an oddity, to something distinctive and rare. Calling someone in the 1400's "John the farmer" would not single out the John you meant. If he had one of those white forelocks, he'd probably be the only one in the county with one, so "John White" would single him out.

Brown, White and Black usually came from hair color, althought Black might have been disposition. Green comes from the sward where cows were grazed in common - you may have heard of "the village green". Someone who lived near it would get that surname; compare it to Banks, Hill and River.

Answer 4

English surnames were a Norman invention. People did not have surnames until the last melinnium. They took them from their occupation, they indicated they were sons of someone, their habitation, or some characteristic about them. Legitimate sons of the same man could wind up with a different surname but still they each shared their surnames with others of whom they were not related.

Also bacon. When did someone come up with the idea of cutting strips and calling it bacon. Perhaps it was someone that was named Bacon.

Answer 5

My ancestors had surnames of White, Rice, Brown, and Black. While I have not been able to locate anything in my genealogy to indicate the origin of these names, I have found:
Taken from; The Book of Ulster Surnames Robert Bell RICE
This name is common in Leinster and Munster but most numerous in Ulster,where its main centres are in counties Antrim and Armagh. The name is Welsh in origin and was previously RHYS which means `ardour', and many in Ulster will be of Welsh stock.
However,the ORIEL name,O'Maolchraoibhe (from craohh-meaning `branch') was also for some unknown reason anglicised as RICE, as well as,more understandably, Mulcreevy, Mulgrew, and Grew. Most Rices of Co. Armagh
will be of this origin. This I found at: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/RICE/1999-10/0940880259
So, believe it or not, it has nothing to do with "food"; it is a misunderstanding from language translation. (My Mom;s g-g-grandparents came from Wales!)

Here is "White":
Definition: A descriptive or nickname given to a person with very light hair or complexion, from the Middle English "whit," meaning "white." The name may be also local, derived from the Isle of Wight, on the coast of Hampshire.

Surname Origin: English, Scottish, Irish

Alternate Surname Spellings: WHYTE, WHIET

From: http://genealogy.about.com/library/surnames/w/bl_name-WHITE.htm

The ancestors furthest back spelt the name, "Whyte", as above. Yes, they were from the Isle of Wight (others from the Island of Mann! Glad none of them took that surname!)

I usually try to determine the meaning/origin of the surnames on my family tree. The overwhelming majority return a result of "no hits". Of course. Surnames were language contextual, meaning it would be something else in a different language! Another Believe it or Not moment: Middle English was so different from Modern English as to be a completely different language. By contrast, French, German and Spanish are stuck in the Middle Ages (yes, I have studied those languages!)

Surnames were derived from the father's (or mother's) name, such as Johnson or Ericsdotter; they were derived from the place the people lived (ancestors of mine from England, Wales, France, the Netherlands (no, the country is not "Dutch"), Spain and Germany all did this), from occupations (Smith and Cooper) and so forth. Most modern names, such as is the case of White or Rice are mistranslations, or due to errors (one of my g-grandmothers was "Armina"; but, perhaps her name was "R. Miner". Who knows? THAT one was a clerical error.
Then there are names such as "Erlinda". "Linda" is so passe, so "Erlinda" was invented, as is the case of millions of names.

Answer 6

None has a weird ancestry. Most of those names are well-respected European names. The weird one is Johnny Apple from the New York Times/ Most of the time I think he just made it up.

Answer 7

There job surroundinGs some got changed!!! UNique ness of familys!!!