# Where did last names come from **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 18, 2004, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957 "2004-03-18T02:32:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/41 "2004-03-18T20:19:05Z")
The [U.S. Census Bureau](http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names/nam_meth.txt) found 88,799 distinct surnames (last names, family names, whatever) in a survey of 7.2 million records from the 1990 census. The most common surnames: 1. SMITH —— 1.006 % of the U.S. population 2. JOHNSON —— 0.810 % 3. WILLIAMS —— 0.699 % 4. JONES —— 0.621 % 5. BROWN —— 0.621 % 6. DAVIS —— 0.480 % 7. MILLER —— 0.424 % 8. WILSON —— 0.339 % 9. MOORE —— 0.312 % 10. TAYLOR —— 0.311 % 11. ANDERSON —— 0.311 % 12. THOMAS —— 0.311 % 13. JACKSON —— 0.310 % 14. WHITE —— 0.279 % 15. HARRIS —— 0.275 % 16. MARTIN —— 0.273 % 17. THOMPSON —— 0.269 % 18. GARCIA —— 0.254 % 19. MARTINEZ —— 0.234 % 20. ROBINSON —— 0.233 % ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/42 "2004-03-18T20:21:00Z")
> [@IzzyR](#): > > Actually, Blau is a relatively common Jewish name meaning Blue (possibly referring to eye color). Oddly enough, the New York City online White Pages lists only 73 Blaus. Los Angeles lists 11 with that last name, while Chicago lists a mere 5. Do those figures seem higher or lower than you’d expected? My hometown of New Orleans lists not a one. Well, at least there are a few Blaus out there. The color “blue” has some direct representation. ---
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/43 "2004-03-18T20:31:46Z")
> [@PookahMacPhellimey](#): > > Maybe I didn’t put that clear enough, then. I didn’t mean “vanish” in the sense of “disappears off the face of the earth instantly”. All I’m saying is that marriage has the potential (though not the necessity in all cases) of diminishing the number of names. I am female and have no brothers, so if I married and took on someone else’s name, my branch of that the name would die out. Yes, I know, some male cousin somewhere could be raising a brood of sixteen strapping and eligible young lads and cancel that out. Still though, marriage has the potential to “kill off” branches of surnames and I don’t see there’s any equivalent institution that would add on names (except deed poll changes, which seem to me to be a much smaller factor). So it still seems to me that as a net result the number of names would diminish. > > **scm101** thinks immigration would fit the bill as bringer of new surnames. Of course that’s completely true if you are looking at the surnames of just the one country. If you’re looking at surnames worldwide the same process I described above would still to apply. The only way around it that I can think of is by having different ways of deriving surnames than we do. I think, for instance, that in Iceland a boy would get his father’s first name with “son” stuck after it. I think the Arabic system might be similar, but I’m not sure how that works exactly. I’m the last of my last name from four generations – all of the males four generations back begat only females, with one exception; that man begat two boys (my father and his brother) and only one of those men had a son (that would be my father). So my name is going to “disappear” – except that it’s a remarkably common name, and there is a town not too far from my birthplace _named_ for the high proportion of our folk there; we take up three pages in the local phone book there. So while my one, small branch of red-headed Jurph-kin may die out (I haven’t had kids yet, but I’m still young!) , there will be plenty more families with my last name for a while now. Perhaps in the _very very_ long term some of the less-common or undesirable names will disappear (for example, I don’t know very many Hitlers) but in general, I think it’s more an intriguing possibility than an inevitable fact. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/44 "2004-03-18T20:44:07Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Look at the decrease in the number of people with the family name “Hitler” in the United States after the start of World War II. It’s not like there were a lot to begin with. The 1930 U.S. census records only four Hitler households in the U.S.: in Staunton, Illinois; Circleville, Ohio (imagine being named “Gay Hitler”); Washington, Ohio; and Racine, Wisconsin. The Hitlers of Circleville and Washington, Ohio, kept their surname till death; I don’t have information about what the Illinois or Wisconsin Hitlers did. > [@acsenray](#): > > Look at the “Ellis Island” random changing of immigrants’ names. [The Ellis Island name change myth.](http://uscis.gov/graphics/aboutus/history/articles/nameessay.html) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/45 "2004-03-18T21:01:26Z")
That link disputes the idea that names were randomly granted by officials – such as naming someone who is smiling “Smiley” – in fact, I was not even aware of this myth. In fact, the link confirms that names were often mangled, or at the very least mispelled, through the course of immigration. The point is that people will change their names when they want to or have to. You can hypothesize that if we all stick to the rule that a wife takes her husband’s family name and the children only get the husband’s family name – then, indeed, eventually, we would all have the same name. It’s a matter of statistics. Eventually, every family name except one will disappear for failure of male issue. However, in real life, there is no reason to believe that this will actually be the case. So long as society finds the concept of family names useful, it is logical to surmise that there will be changes in the system to keep it useful. If it actually comes to the point that we all have the same family name, it would no longer be useful, and I’ll bet you that once it’s no longer useful, we won’t be using them any more – at which point we will have come up with some other naming system. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/46 "2004-03-18T21:19:20Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Oddly enough, the New York City online White Pages lists only 73 Blaus. Los Angeles lists 11 with that last name, while Chicago lists a mere 5. Do those figures seem higher or lower than you’d expected? Lower. But regardless - if my expectations were wrong they were wrong. (I suspect that your search on New York City may have only included Manhattan, though. I did a quick search and found 60 listings in Brooklyn and another 70 in Manhattan). > [@](#): > > Well, at least there are a few Blaus out there. The color “blue” has some direct representation. Actualy, now that I think about it, the name “Blue” itself is out there as well. Former MLB pitcher Vida Blue being one example. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/47 "2004-03-18T21:47:26Z")
> [@IzzyR](#): > > Lower. But regardless - if my expectations were wrong they were wrong. (I suspect that your search on New York City may have only included Manhattan, though. I did a quick search and found 60 listings in Brooklyn and another 70 in Manhattan). Aaah … I wasn’t sure about how NYC boroughs were treated in telephone listings. Good thinking. > [@IzzyR](#): > > Actualy, now that I think about it, the name “Blue” itself is out there as well. Former MLB pitcher Vida Blue being one example. Yep … I know of a few other Blues as well. This name was mentioned in post #22 above. ---
**Author:** ![RitzyRae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/aca169/32.png) [@RitzyRae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitzyRae)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/48 "2004-03-18T22:04:41Z")
> [@daffyduck](#): > > How do you figure “When two people marry, quite often one surname vanishes” ?? > > If you are saying that a surname vanishes just because a woman takes her husband’s surname, then you are forgetting that the woman probably has brothers and they will keep the surname alive. Your logic is based on a false premise. Uh, I don’t think they meant vanishes-forever-without-a-trace. Anyway… In my case, my maiden is very unique. In fact, we don’t know another soul with our family name, outside of fairly immediate family. Still I took my husband’s name, and moved my maiden name to a middle name. Why? I have one younger brother, and he is the only boy in my father’s family who could carry on the family name. But just because my brother exists, doesn’t guarantee that _he_ will have a son. The name could die out with him. I kept it as part of mine, just in case. Don’t assume just because a son exists that the name will continue. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/49 "2004-03-19T02:17:01Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > IIRC, the Dutch word for “Orange” is the family name of the Dutch royal family. I’d need to give that a quick Google search to be certain. You’re right. More exactly Orange-Nassau, if I’m not mistaken. This family originally ruled the city of Orange, currently situated in southern France. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/50 "2004-03-19T02:21:40Z")
> [@scm1001](#): > > Hardly, due to immigration names are constantly being added. I would imagine if you looked in the UK phone directory 50 years ago there would only be half the number of different names we have now. > . That’s true. Hence, let’s say that _local_ family names are disapearing. I know it has been clearly studied and proved. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/51 "2004-03-19T02:29:50Z")
> [@daffyduck](#): > > How do you figure “When two people marry, quite often one surname vanishes” ?? > > If you are saying that a surname vanishes just because a woman takes her husband’s surname, then you are forgetting that the woman probably has brothers and they will keep the surname alive. Your logic is based on a false premise. This woman _might_ have a brother, but not necessarily. Also, many people don’t have any children at all. Though my own name isn’t very common, I could find out that there was actually a number of us. On the other hand, searching databases, I’ve been unable to locate anybody else with my mother’s maiden name (she had no brothers and her uncles didn’t have children). So, for all I know, her name could dissapear with her. I even thought about adding it to my own for this reason. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/52 "2004-03-19T02:41:47Z")
Because so many people used “Smith” as an example of a profession, let me add some variety to the list off the top of my head. There’s a lot of last names that are also professions or skills: Archer, Baker, Bishop, Bowman, Bowyer, Brewer, Butler, Carpenter, Carter, Cartwright, Carver, Chandler, Cook, Cooper, Fletcher, Glover, Hunter, Mason, Miller, Porter, Sawyer, Shepherd, Shoemaker, Taylor, Thatcher, Weaver, Wright. I’m sure we could come up with a bunch more names like this if we included translations: Schumacher for Shoemaker, for instance. Still, I don’t see anybody really adopting the name of “banker” or “lawyer.” I wonder why. ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/53 "2004-03-19T03:13:45Z")
> [@RitzyRae](#): > > Don’t assume just because a son exists that the name will continue. And they also shouldn’t assume that a daughter can’t pass on the name. My oldest nephew has his mother’s last name. Single mothers are just as likely (and perhaps more likely) to give their children their last name as to give the father’s. Plus, if a woman keeps her last name when she gets married, the kids might also end up with her last name, for one reason or another. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/54 "2004-03-19T08:45:25Z")
> [@AndrewT](#): > > And what about colours; why are there people named White, Brown, Black, Green and Grey, but no Purple, Orange, Blue or Red? Many of the ‘color’ names are also part of the profession category. A small village probably had only the one blacksmith, and “Smith” often became his surname. But a larger town would have had several smiths, working different metals: blacksmith (iron), whitesmith (tin, tinker), goldsmith (gold jewelry), silversmith (silver), coppersmith (copper), etc. Calling them all “Smith” wouldn’t be distinct enough, so they often got surnames from the other part of their trade, the color or metal that they worked. Thus we have surnames like “Black”, “White”, “Gold”, “Silver”, etc. ---
**Author:** ![vd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b19c9b/32.png) [@vd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vd)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/55 "2004-03-19T16:07:25Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > That’s true. Hence, let’s say that _local_ family names are disapearing. I know it has been clearly studied and proved. ISTR that Pitcairn Islanders (with the family names of the Bounty mutineers they’re descended from) are an example of locally vanishing family names. ---
**Author:** ![Chimpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@Chimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimpy)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/56 "2004-03-19T19:50:51Z")
My history teacher was called Mr Turnbull and he told us that a possible root of it was that when a king (his name escapes me) was visiting the border of england and scotland an enraged bull began to charge on him however a man who was travelling with him (somehow) turned the bull away and thus became “Turn-e-Bull” which became “Turnbull”. ---
**Author:** ![epepke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9de0a6/32.png) [@epepke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epepke)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/57 "2004-03-19T23:55:12Z")
> [@AndrewT](#): > > Yebbut how did people then get names like King and Pope? There can’t have been that many (there was only 1 English pope for instance), yet they’re quite common names. > > And what about colours; why are there people named White, Brown, Black, Green and Grey, but no Purple, Orange, Blue or Red? Except for William of Orange, Eric the Red, and, um, Blue Peter? And when the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince was merely the artist formerly known as Prince, I pronounced his symbol “purple.” ---
**Author:** ![daffyduck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ec9cab/32.png) [@daffyduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/daffyduck)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2004, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/58 "2004-03-20T03:31:33Z")
The original argument was that surnames can be lost by marriage because the woman gives up her name and her children take the name of their father. My point is simply that this is a spurious argument because the original poster has already defined the situation as one in which surnames are passing down from males. Since women in this scenario are not passing on their surnames anyway, it is silly to say that their name is lost by their marriage. They can’t lose what they don’t have and they never had the ability to pass on their surname anyway. Again, this logical argument is limited to this specific situation. If you posit a world in which only males pass on their surnames, then only male surnames can be lost. In this scenario, a woman’s surname name is irrelevant. If a man and wife only produce a daughter, then the surname is lost because of the lack of a male heir, not because the daughter eventually marries and gives up her surname. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2004, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/59 "2004-03-20T13:11:42Z")
> [@PookahMacPhellimey](#): > > I’m always intrigued by almost the opposite problem; will all the surnames vanish? When two people marry, quite often one surname vanishes. Even if a woman decided to keep her maiden name, I think a lot of the time children wil all take on the same surname, be it mum’s or dad’s. Even if they don’t there are hardly any new names springing into existence (apart from people changing names by deed poll, which I reckon must be a minority). At least not in western cultures anyway. So will all people in western cultures eventually end up with the same surname? It can be proved mathematically that, assuming the old habit of children taking their father’s name continues, any given family name will eventually disappear with probablility 1. This does not mean that every family name will disappear. Probability theory at infinity behaves a bit differently from finite probability and probability 1 does not mean necessarily. For similar reasons, every male line disappears with probability 1, every species eventually goes extinct and so on. Getting back to the original question, there is really no one answer. Different countries have different histories. Most Icelanders, for example, have no family names and it took an act of the parliament to allow Vladimir Ashkenazy to become naturalized and keep his family name (and pass it on). What they do is use given name and, if necessary, a patronymic. For instance the president is (or was) Vigdis but was generally identified as Vigdis Finboggadottir. Her father was named Finboy, genitive Finbogga, but that is not her family name. Similarly, the president of Indonesia is named Megawati and that is her only name. She is identified as Megawati Sukarnoputri, but that was the western media who were uncomfortable with one name and so a patronymic was added. Since she is the daughter of Sukarno, that became her name for the west. But I had an Indonesian student who became quite angry with people who couldn’t accept the fact that she had just one name. In Germany, commoners did not generally have family names until they were required in, I believe, the 19th century. While they often chose occupational, patronymic, or similar names, there were a lot of people who chose a meaningless monosyllable. ---
**Author:** ![august9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7993a0/32.png) [@august9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/august9)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2004, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957/60 "2004-03-20T15:33:00Z")
> [@Hari Seldon](#): > > In Germany, commoners did not generally have family names until they were required in, I believe, the 19th century. While they often chose occupational, patronymic, or similar names, there were a lot of people who chose a meaningless monosyllable. This was also the case in Denmark - especially patronymic names. The current king declared, for some reason or other which I can’t remember at the moment (and sometime in the 19th century I belive), that people should keep their patronymic names as family names. This means that the most common surnames in Denmark is -sen names (son of). I think that one of the most common reasons for people to voluntarily change their surnames, is to change it something other than a -sen name, as these names are extremely common. There were a lot of men called Hans, Niels, Lars, Jens, Anders, Mads, Peter and Søren around in the 19th century, and this led to surnames such as Hansen, Nielsen, Larsen and so on. For instance, my own family name is Andersen, which was also my fathers and his fathers family name (not their given name, of course). His mother maiden name was Madsen. My mothers parents family names were both Nielsen. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-last-names-come-from/234957.md?page=2)