I’m curious as to how surnames actually came into play, but the reasons for this curiosity are rather insidious, so I’ll spare you. The research I’ve done thus far makes it clear that their history is sketchy at best, but they seem to have appeared circa 1120 amongst the Normans, and though I’m inclined to take this information at face value, it still doesn’t sate my thirst for knowledge regarding how they were distributed.
Although it’s generally accepted that surnames are derived from occupation (“Smith,” “Silverman,” etc.) lineage (“Samson,” “Masterson,” etc.), and the like, I’d like a bit more concrete evidence than “it’s nationally-recognized as being so.” The nation on the whole tends to “recognize” rather idiotic things.
Could you restate this? I’m not sure exactly what you’re driving toward.
As we await your clarification, I will throw out a few observations:
Surnames in English first appeared in the early 12th century, however, surnames have appeared in many cultures at different times. The earliest reference to surnames indicated by the Encyclopædia Britannica dates to a Chinese emperor’s edict in 2852 BCE. The Romans had a double system of surnames: The full name of the man popularly referred to as Julius Caesar was Gaius Iulius Caesar. Gaius (or Caius) was his gens (analogous to a Scottish clan) and Caesar was his immediate family name.
As a WAG, I would say that population pressures are generally responsible for surnames (although the rise in population does not cause or require the creation of surnames). When populations get large enough to cause several people to share a name (particularly if the society has a bureaucracy that is interested in tracking individuals, say for tax purposes), then one solution that has arisen on several occasions has been to assign each family a name and track the individuals by their name within their family.
Note that the Chinese and the Romans were noted for their bureaucracies and that the Normans who invaded England had at least a touch of the same fever–leading to the Doomsday book.
On the other hand, the Ottoman Turks never bought into that need (and they did not get around to requiring surnames until 1935, several years after their empire had been pretty well broken up). I do not know how bureaucratic the Ottoman Empire was.
Sorry about not being more succinct; I’m not only interested in the history behind the need for surnames (thank you for your information, by the way), but also the reasons behind the assignment of them.
Most people accept certain surnames as being derived from an occupation (in the examples I listed above, a blacksmith and silversmith, respectively) or a familial predecessor (in my examples, derived from the biblical “Samp” or “Sampson” and “son of the master/leader/teacher,” respectively), but I’ve never seen cold, hard evidence that this was so and it seems somewhat hard to come by. Direction to a reference of surname etymologies would be ideal, as all the listings I’ve found leave much to be desired.
Actually from what I remember from Latin Gaius was his first name and Julius was his Gens. In Rome there was only around 15 first names for males and females usually were known by their clan name. Thus every women in clan Julia was called Julia. Stupid Romans.
TitoBenito, you are correct. I tend to mess that up because his nephew was originally Gaius Octavius and I always figure that the “Gaius” tied them together by clan.
I’ve never read a thorough explanation of the Roman gens system and I should probably avoid discussing it until I do.
I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking for here, but I might point out that from the viewpoint of an expert on names, your question might be a big ambiguous. You use the term “surname,” which technically is a an “extra” name added on top of a person’s given name, such as Scipio Africanus or Alfred the Great.
It seems what you are really asking about are what name scholars classify as “family names,” which are names that people pass on from generation to generation unchanged. (The British term “surname” doesn’t quite fit here, but also the American term “last name,” is not accurate here, because in many cultures the family name doesn’t go last.)
And if you are asking about family names, your question still isn’t quite clear to me. You say it is generally accepted that family names originate in either occupational names or patronymics. However, as far as I know, that is not generally accepted. There are four common sources of family names in English tradition — occupational names (Webster, Sumner, Fuller), patronymic names (Adkins, Dobbins), descriptive names (Black, Scot), and place names (Hill, Hamilton). When you move outside the English tradition, you get a few more, such as clan names, tribal names, and caste names, as well as names derived from titles of nobility (which are usually place names).
Really, any good book on names should help here. One fairly accessible source is Leslie Dunkling’s, which is called The Guiness Book of Names or something like that. For more extensive information you could take a look at one of the many books in the bookstore on Arabic names, Chinese names, Sanskrit names, Hindu names, etc. Just be sure to stay away from anything that looks like a “name your baby” book. They tend to be chock full of errors.
Just like to add — of course, noble titles also exist in the English tradition, but very few people with Anglo-derived family names can actually trace their names to a noble ancestor. Also, while the geographic portion of a title is usually the source for a noble family name, the rank portion of a title (Duke, Earl, King) is a common source of occupational family names (and given names) for commoners.
[slight hijack]
So what does it mean when someone’s last name is Queen or King. Does that mean they are related to an ancestoral Queen or King, or that someone in their family used to work for royalty?
[/hijack]
There might be some tiny number of people named King or Queen who are actually descended from royalty, but chances are very, very small. Most likely there was an ancestor who held some kind of royal office (“King’s man”) or was otherwise associated with a place or organisation that used the word King or Queen in its name – perhaps something as pedestrian as a tavern called the King’s Arms. There is also a possibility that, particularly people immigrating to the United States, the name King or Queen resulted from either a mistake in tranliteration or translation of a non-English name.