Posted on 01/26/2025 1:24:38 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Have you traced your family tree? The origin of some of the most popular last names can reveal a lot about a family’s history.
Some surnames say a lot about a family’s history without any further explanation — consider Schwarzenegger, Obama, or even Boyardee. But even common last names can hold a lot of significance and provide a glimpse into someone’s heritage. Smith — the most common last name in the United States — is shared by more than 2 million Americans, yet it holds an etymological clue to understanding how those people might connect to their ancestors. Let’s look at what some common last names have to say about history.
Any surname that ends in “-son” or “-sen” has a potential connection to Vikings, according to a researcher from the Centre of Nordic Studies.
. Vikings didn’t have family names, but they did have a patronymic system in which children were named after their father. So, for example, a father named John may have named his son Johnson (John’s son). According to the same research, any English surname with personal characteristics (Goodman, Longfellow, etc.) also likely possesses a Viking connection. The same goes for the common last names Roger and Rogers, which come from the Old English name Hrothgar, meaning “famous spear.” That name stems from the Old Norse name Hroarr, which was a popular moniker throughout Scandinavia.
The most popular surname in English-speaking regions is Smith, with about 2.3 million Smiths in the U.S. (just shy of 1% of the population). This last name was originally used to designate someone with a specific smithing (metalworking) occupation. The name originated in England, where there were Smiths in every village working on a variety of trades. In addition to the fairly well-known occupations of blacksmith and locksmith, there might have been a gold or silversmith, a whitesmith (working with tin), a coppersmith, a locksmith, a gunsmith, a blade or swordsmith, an armor or shieldsmith, and a coopersmith (making barrels and casks). With so many smithing professions, you can see how Smith has lasted in popularity.
Many other English surnames also have to do with professions. The name Wright, for example, comes from those who were skilled manufacturers of wooden objects; the surname Fletcher originated among those who made arrows; and the last name Ward comes from anyone who served as a watchman.
There are also English last names that stem from other countries, such as Fleming (from the Flemish region of modern Belgium) or Moore (from Morocco). Literal landscape features provide inspiration as well, such as in the case of Hill or Woods. These may have been defining features of your ancestors’ hometown.
The most popular surname in the world is Chinese in origin: Wang, a name that boasts a historic connection to ancient royalty. Wang — which means “king” in Mandarin — became popular after many Chinese kingdoms were destroyed by the first Qin dynasty emperor in the third century BCE. Royal families all changed their name to Wang en masse to protect their individual identities, so there were too many Wangs for the new regime to target any specific royal family.
This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to the history behind popular last names. There are an estimated 11 million unique surnames in the world today, making it an impossibility to trace the etymology of each here. But for anyone who’s curious about their family history, follow some of the etymological examples above and you may learn a thing or two about your ancestors.
It is not incestuous when two people who might share a 5th or 6th or 7th set of great-grandparents have a child...and the further you go back in your family the more likely it is you will find someone who occupies two places on that tree in different branches.
As a result you may come up with less than 64 different last names if you go back 7 generations. Not as a result of incestuous relations either.
Well, that's the verbal family history of our name ...
Catholics in name only have nothing to be proud of. Everything perverted, as Pelosi says, is a sacred right to them.
Occupational names such as Baker, Farmer, Mason, Miller, are common names .
Thus we know each and every child mutilation performed under the lie "gender affirming care" is criminal abuse by mentally ill people who shouldn't be parents.
An Indian bank teller with the lash name of Shah usually belongs to the Jain religion. Think of Hinduism on steroids.
LOL
Fascinating history you have.
Your Welsh ancestor may have fought against mine in the Civil War. as North Carolina was a Southern state.
My husband’s family were early settlers of N. Carolina, even have a tiny hamlet named for them. My father-in-law still had a summer cabin there when he was alive. I’ve never been there and perhaps the tiny hamlet has been absorbed or grown into a larger town...so I looked and found that it is. You can see it on YouTube:
Just go to YouTube and enter:
I’m visiting every town in NC - Dortches, North Carolina
Family name was Dortch.
And V.J. Singh is a terrific golfer. Older now, still playing, but not in the PGA.
I believe Great-Grandpa picked it at random.
You forgot
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,
That’s my name too.
Whenever I go out, the people always shout
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, da da da da...
Jews did not have surnames until the 19th Century it was first, name, and Son of( Ben)
John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith?
His name is my name too!
Many families have a similar story of misheard names and misspellings at Ellis Island. Then, that new surname carried on for generations. Based on information from older relatives and old records, the first and last names of many of my Italian ancestors were changed there. Officials sometimes changed the spellings, dropped vowels, or wrote down the English version of a name. They had to process so many immigrants that they probably rushed them all through. To English-speaking ears, the Italian pronunciation of certain letters sound similar to each other. We think the officials misheard the names, and then our g-grandparents and grandparents just went with it. But, some old documents show different spellings.
That sort of thing had gone on for centuries before Ellis Island. When a peasant couple registered a birth in the parish church, the only sort of public record until about 200 years ago, the priest had to guess at how to spell the name. The illiterate peasants certainly had no idea. Add in the fact that the priest was often not a native speaker of the local dialect, or perhaps even language, and you got a lot of variations in family names.
I don't remember the details, but I have read of an instance of brothers, born in Central Europe, in the 1800s, with different spellings of the last names, because a different priest, or possibly the same one, guessed differently about how to spell the name the peasant family gave, when registering births several years apart.
Ah, yes, I can see how that would happen. Then, figure in all the other ways names change, and it can be difficult tracing one’s ancestry. I haven’t been able to trace mine back further than 2-3 generations to Ellis Island.
My family came south through North Carolina also and then South Carolina, Georgia, and into Bama. One side has a family home (built in 1800s) still standing in South Carolina in a town named after that side of family...maternal side was Scots men who married Dutch women. Paternal side goes back supposedly to Mayflower (Alden) and further back to the Sinclairs of Rosslyn Chapel fame. I’ve always thought it interesting that Oak Island has someone with my paternal name on it and they could also have connection to Sinclair...but it’s looking like Oak Island may turn out to be pirate treasure and not Knights Templar after all. I’m rambling...sry.
Interesting background and desire to keep touch with your ancestry. My ancestry hails mostly from the British Isles and Scandinavia but I haven’t been brave enough to try haggis or pickled herring. You’re a braver man than I am, Gunga Din.
Really great story. Hope you got a whole heap of that pirate treasure.
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