Family Names Just when and in what circumstances did we acquire the family names we have today? We haven’t always had them. In biblical times it was Peter, James, and John—there were no mention of any family names... Yet today, nearly two thousand years later, civilized people in most parts of the world have family names... When did this change take place? And, more importantly, how and why did the change come about? J. R. Dolan, English Ancestral Names: The Evolution of the Surname from Medieval Occupations (1972) Where did surnames or family names come from? Last Names: Meanings and Origins Surname Distribution (United States)United States Behind the NameBehind the Name: Etymology & History of Surnames

Family Names Most Common Sources: 1)Patronymic 2)Locality 3)Occupation 4)Nicknames Irish  Mac (“son of”) or O’ (“grandson of) Italian  d’ or di (“son of”) Dutch, German, Swedish  son or sen (“son of”)

Some English Names: 1)Akerman  “dweller by the cultivated land” (Middle English) 2)Appleby  someone who lived by or tended an apple orchard 3)Arkwright  name for a chest maker (Middle English) 4)Attwater  “dweller at the water” (Middle English) 5)Bagley  someone who lived near a field populated by badgers 6) Banister  “basket maker” (Norman French) 7) Barker  a leather tanner (Middle English) 8) Blythe  “happy” or “joyous” (Old English) 9) Burke  “fort or fortified town” (Middle English) brought to Ireland in 12 th c. 10) Butler  “servant in charge of the bottles (of wine)” (Middle English) 11) Chamberlain  “one who looked after the master bedroom” (Norman French) 12) Chandler  “a candle seller or maker” (Middle English) 13) Clark  “cleric” or “scholar” (Old English) 14) Dexter  “dyer” (Old English) 15) Draper  maker or seller of woolen cloth (Anglo-Norman French)

Some German Names: 1)Adler  “noble eagle” 2)Bach  someone who lived by a stream 3)Bauer & Boer  “farmer” 4)Fenstermacher  “window maker” 5)Fleischer & Metzger  “butcher” 6)Geiger  “fiddle player” 7) Knopf  a button maker or seller 8) Kohler  charcoal burner or seller 9) Kraus  person with curly hair 10) Lehrer  “teacher” 11) Nussbaum  “nut tree” 12) Roth  person with red hair 13) Schindler  “shingler” or “roof tiler” 14) Schmidt  “smith” or “metalwoker” 15) Schneider  “tailor”

Miscellaneous Names: 1)Dvorak  someone who owned a manor or worked on one (Czech)Dvorak 2)Sorenson  “son of Soren” (Norwegian)Sorenson 3)Larsen  “son of Lars” (Danish)Larsen 4)Kim  “gold” (Korean)Kim 5)Kwan  “mountain” (Chinese, Korean)Kwan 6)Cohen  “priest” (Jewish)Cohen 7)Nurmi  “meadow” (Finnish)Nurmi 8)Smith  “metal worker” (English)Smith 9)Jackson  “son of Jack” (English)Jackson 10) Kennedy  “misshapen head” (Irish, Scottish)Kennedy 11) Martinez  “son of Martin” (Spanish)Martinez 12) Rossi  “red-haired person” (Italian)Rossi 13) Tanaka  “(dweller in the) middle of rice fields” (Japanese)Tanaka 14) Novak  “someone new (to a village)” (Czech, Polish, Slovak, Slovene, Jewish)Novak 15) Dykstra  “one living near a dyke or embankment” (Dutch)Dykstra