Everyone has a surname (lastname), but have you ever wondered when it all began?

Who was the first person to be named a last name? In othe words how far do you have to go down on your family tree to reach some distant relative that doesn't have your surname?

When it all began? In the start I think surnames were familynames, or the name of ones father/mother. Or of the place one came from.

 

I have two surnames, one from my mom and one from my dad. The surname from my mom is not older than five generations, as my greatgreatgrandfather made up a surname for himself when he was 15, if I remember correctly. The surname from my dad comes from the area were my family comes from.

Surnames evolved from people needing to ditinguish between two people with the same first name... they did this by labeling the person, like John the blacksmith was called John Smith. and john's son James was called James Johnson.

Mine's a clan name, another way to get a name. Some surnames are the name of the region of origin, quite a few are local dialect (Welsh, Celt, Saxon) for the area of birth in a literal way (like 'by the river', or 'From the South').

 

Just for info, I can trace the family name my mothers side to around 900ad and my dad's back to the last Roman occupation of Britain. Records get a bit pointless past that point.

Mine's an anglified clan name originating from those wierd highland folk who liked nothing better than to bash each others head is with axes and rocks.

 

http://www.scottish-heirloom.com/henderson_clan/scottish_clans_history.html

some of you may find this site helpfull also

 

http://www.familychronicle.com/surname.htm

 

atinymonkey said in post # :

Just for info, I can trace the family name my mothers side to around 900ad and my dad's back to the last Roman occupation of Britain. Records get a bit pointless past that point.

 

 

How?

Well, the clans name is simple. They are part of the forces that Hadrian built a wall to defend from, so appear in quite a few documents. The scottish have quite a few skirmishes which the clan appears in so they can be traced back quite far.

 

My mothers side were landowners, prior to the Norman invasion, so have deeds of ownership up until the civil war. From that point onwards it's tracable through public records.

 

Just tracing the name is easy, tracing the actual ancestors is tricky.

Tracing your family history in Scotland is a whole lot easier than England....our certificates of marriage, death,birth etc have much more info. I've done a bit of this and managed to get back to the late 18th century (1790 or so) but I let it go a bit as my job/domestic stuff intervened. My maiden surname is Norse apparently.....and was first recorded in Orkney in the 1300's sometime.

Arrrrggg, a Viking raider:eek:.

 

Run for your god fearing lives!

I fear no god.

 

Should I stay put?

Christ on a bike. 1000 years of town criers and layers of preparation for the return of Viking hordes, defences built mottoes written and all you can worry about is if you fear God?

 

I mean, honestly. I give up.

Mwhahaha....I am the Viking raider (just ask those who work with me!!!) and I will pillage and despoil.....well actually not but hey, I would love to be a viking maiden.