Fannie Farmer, the candy magnate.
Miller
My family name is Miller, and throughout my entire elementary school days, in every school play, I was assigned the part of the guy who ran the mill. Then, when my kids got old enough to be in such plays, a relative told me that my great-grandfather had been a housepainter in Russia, and that is “Moller” in Russian or Yiddish or something, and it got anglicized to Miller at Ellis Island.
They were all city folk. Nobody in the family ever ran a mill. Go figure.
As for the occupation of farmer…
From what I’ve heard through family historians my surname, which ends in -ing, can be traced back to the same 4 first letters plus -land. For example Hickling could be traced back to Hickland via Hicklin etc. I’ll see if I can do a little more research on that but it would give you a wider base of surnames while still being job descriptive.
Q: Why are there so many Smiths in the phone book?
A: Because they all have phones.
Sorry, I just had to slip that in, compliments of the Prairie Home Companion!
Payne N. Diaz (whose name IRL is Smith)
Bill Bryson, in Made in America I believe, gives the theory that people with names meaning “metalworker” in other languages anglicized to Smith when entering the US. I’ll look up the details of that cite when I get home.
As an alternative explanation, I’ll offer this tale my father told me when I asked why we were Smiths…
“Sweetie, everybody used to be named Smith, but when they grew up, if they did something really bad and were ashamed of it, they’d move away and change their name.”
Corr
You don’t believe how many people bearing the name “Bauer” or “Baur” (the German word for farmer) of compounds of it live in Germany; France, too, has its citizens called Paysan. Maybe the distrust towards farmer as a family name is typically English, I don’t know.
They are a lot of Johnsons in the U.S. (not as much as Smith) what did these people do. Flash people exposing their Johnsons?
Err… Johnson… John’s Son. Johnson is a common surname because John is a common firstname!
I understand that Jones is derived from John’s as well.
The theory that people with horrible names can’t find someone to marry them - my great grandmother was born Jessie Higginbottom. Her brother Hector married a lady named Jean and they had 20 children - 8 boys and 12 girls. One of the boys (and one of the girls) died young, but the other 18 grew up and all married. Two of the sons took the surnames of their wives, five sons remain Higginbottom.
Any girl willing to change her name from Jean Robinson to Jean Higginbottom must truly be in love!
Johnson = son of John.
Probably John Smith’s son!!!
I don’t know where I heard it, and I can’t provide a quote, but I believe there are actually more Johnson’s and Johnston’s and Johnstone’s in the US than Smith’s and Smythe’s and Smithson and Smithers or whathaveyou.
I don’t know 
I may have seen it in a dream, or checked the local phone book or something, but there are more Johnson…s than Smi.th…s in the US, believe me. 
This is the latest I could find and it’s 11 years old.
Bbbbbuuuuutttt it [sniff]says SMITH![/sniff]
There was a survey done about 20 years ago based on Census data, but the data were so admittedly incomplete and, even by the time the survey was done, outdated that I’m not sure it’s valid except to confirm things we already new. (Lotsa Smiths, lotsa Johnsons, but not very many Boyajians.)
Also, did the English ever actually use a Norse-style naming system to any extent? I remember from one of the language books - I think it was Bryson’s - that Johnson was a name the Danes brought to England in the 9th and 10th centuries. It’s therefore substantially more common in northern and eastern England, i.e. the Danish side of the Danelaw. Johnson was then passed on just as we do today.
From the Book of Smith. (Elsdon C. Smith, 1979, Paragon Books)
“A Smith by any other name is still a Smith”
The Swedish form of Smith is Smed. And Norwegian is Smid. Danish is Smid, Smidt, Smit, or Smed. And Finnish is Rautio or Seppanen. Lapp is Ravdde, or Smirjo.
Mapsmith, Proud to be a member of the largest family on earth.
The Swedish word for Smith is Smith and the word for smith is smed. You’re confusing the word for the craftsman with the name and, as stated earlier in this thread, we don’t have that kind of names.
Colibrí, González is a very common surname in Spanish, compared to any other last name (in Puerto Rico, and I think other places probably). It is similar to Johnson in that Johnson=John’s son, while González= Gonzalo’s son. Yes, Gonzalo is/was a name.
The last names Ferrero, Herrera, Ferrer, are not so common as their English counterpart, Smith.
There are probably french people who are called “Paysan”, but it must be quite rare. On the other hand, the most common name in France is Lefebvre and all its variations ( Le Fevre, Lefebure, Lefevre, etc…), which in old french (not in modern french) means " The smith".
Why so much Smith or Fevre? Pretty easy. Surnames, which later were transmitted as family names to the descendant were used to identify people, in order to be able to tell the various Johns one from another. So, they had to refer to a distinguishing feature (the place were the person lived, some physical characteristic, some event in his life, etc…).
His job could do the trick, providing it wasn’t too common (as someone pointed out, John Farmer wouldn’t have helped a lot). For instance (I’ve to take a french example, here, I’m not familiar with english names), one could be called “Pelletier” (Furrier). On the other hand, there wasn’t that much furriers around, so the name isn’t extremely common. He could be called “Charbonnier” (charcoal-burner). But there wasn’t charcoal burner in all places and regions (or at the contary too much in some places for the name to be used), so once again, it’s not rare but not amongst the most common name.
But he could also be called “Smith”. There usually was only one of them in each village, so it was practical as a distinguishing surname. BUT there was an unique smith in each and every little village, which made the name extremely common.
Actually, what surprises me is that there isn’t that much Miller, as someone pointed out. I would suppose that they were in a situation similar to the smith (only one in each village, but in every village). If someone has some kind of explanation, I’d be interested. At first, I remembered that mills were usually owned by the landlords, during the middle-ages, but thinking twice, I thought that anyway there was someone operating it, and the name of his job could have been used anyway.
Now, perhaps what someone wrote about the smiths being a respected profession played a part. Perhaps the smith insisted much more in being called that way instead of some other nickname, while the miller didn’t. Thinking thrice, now, perhaps my original explanation about the miller being employed in the noble’s owned mill is important. There were probably “dynasties” of smiths, the job passing to the son, while the son of the employed miller could not be miller at all, hence making impractical to use miller as a family name.