When did last names get started?

[coolbrz731]

I never thought about it, but we only use the 1st name of bible characters.  Or refer to them as "son of X".  Was it always this way until recently?  Is there any clue as to when we started using last names?

[Kiku]

Quote

While the use of given names to identify individuals is attested in the oldest historical records, the advent of surnames is a relatively recent phenomenon. Many cultures have used and continue to use additional descriptive terms in identifying individuals. These terms may indicate personal attributes, location of origin, occupation, parentage, patronage, adoption, or clan affiliation. These descriptors often developed into fixed clan identifications that in turn became family names as we know them today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surname#Origins

[Tortuga]

6 minutes ago, coolbrz731 said:

I never thought about it, but we only use the 1st name of bible characters. 

John Baptist had a last name...

[Shawnster]

As this is a more general discussion and not a Bible research discussion, let's move this to a better place. 

[Dages]

15 minutes ago, Tortuga said:

John Baptist had a last name...

Ha yes, and Jesus Christ, and Jehovah God  

[Tortuga]

Judas Iscariot...🤣

[Friends just call me Ross]

I think mothers started the trend whenever their children were naughty.   🤣

 

"Michael Douglas Hammond, GET IN THIS HOUSE THIS MINUTE!!!"  😡

 

Come to think of it, I think that's when the use of middle names came about, too. 🤔

 

 

🤣😂🤣

[coolbrz731]

14 minutes ago, Friends just call me Ross said:

I think mothers started the trend whenever their children were naughty.   🤣

 

"Michael Douglas Hammond, GET IN THIS HOUSE THIS MINUTE!!!"  😡

 

Come to think of it, I think that's when the use of middle names came about, too. 🤔

 

 

🤣😂🤣

Does that also apply to the long version of the name?  Instead of Chris, it's "Christopher!"  Instead of Alex, it's "Alexander!"  😆

[Tortuga]

Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff Sr. never got yelled at...

[EccentricM]

2 hours ago, coolbrz731 said:

I never thought about it, but we only use the 1st name of bible characters.  Or refer to them as "son of X".  Was it always this way until recently?  Is there any clue as to when we started using last names?

They started as titles, to describe where a person was from, what he did, etc.

 

This was helpful for census records if there was more than one person with the same name. For example "John Wood" may have come from "John who lives in the woods" or "John the woodcuttter".

 

Sometimes "the son of" may also be the origin of a last name. For example, someone may be called "Joanne James", and it may go back to "the son of James".

 

A lot of modern surnames are ancient words that meant simple things. For example, my last name "Tibbins"comes from Theobald, which is Anglosaxon and French for "brave people" or "strong people".

 

If you trace your last name, its ancient meaning in translation, you then may get an idea of who or what some of your earliest ancestors were in ancient times.

Edited January 17, 2022 by EccentricM

[New World Explorer]

Let's not miss this important fact, as we discuss surnames LOL 

 

The surname Donut is a name that came to England in the 11th century wave of migration that was set off by the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Donut family lived in Sussex. The family was originally from D'Anet, in Normandy, and it is from this location that their surname derives.

[Brother_Bliss]

My last name, according to https://www.houseofnames.com/angle-family-crest

 

"The Angle surname finds its earliest origins with the ancient Anglo-Saxon culture of Britain. Their name is derived from the Old English personal name Angel, which is derived from the Latin Angelus and the Greek Angelos, which means a messenger. The personal name also appeared in the feminine forms of Angela and Angelina. [1]

The name is denoted for "one who acted as a religious messenger or as a messenger from God; a nickname for an angelic person; descendant of Angel, a man's name in England."

[Hotteok]

I wonder how western people came to have middle names too. They sound cool. 

[jayrtom]

Brace yourselves for my full name

 

[Pabo]

On 1/20/2022 at 10:04 PM, jayrtom said:

Brace yourselves for my full name

 

At High School in a drama class (which we all had to do in Year 7 or 1st Form), the teacher paired up the students in the class, generally boy girl, as she wanted to shake it up so students didn't do things with the friends. We were given 10 mins to come up with a 30 second skit and we had to dress up (as there was a wardrobe full of various clothes and costumes) and present our skit to the class.

 

I was paired up with a girl, so I suggested a quick skit that I read in a Reader Digest and she liked it. So I dressed up in a smart suit with a bow tie, hair slicked in the manner of Sean Connery when he played James Bond, and the other female student wore a long evening sparkling dress, high heels and let her hair drape down around her shoulders (she normally always had it in a bun) which made her very attractive. We set up one of the desks on it's side, but had so that the length high to become the height of a bar, and sat a table on top to make it a top for the bar. She sort of sat on the edge of the bar stool, as you would imagine how a Bond girl would be seated at a  at a bar.

 

She pretended to be sipping from a martini glass prop and I, in a Sean Connery sway, walked up to her with my martini glass and started to introduced myself.

"My name is Bond, James Bond" I said with a Scottish accent as Connery would do.

She looked me up and down, then looked me in the eye, then puts her glass down onto the bar and moves her her out so as to be making a greeting of hands said: "Lost, Get Lost!" and then slapped me on the cheek.

 

That was our skit and we had the whole class in stitches and even the teacher, which we got full marks. She had actually slapped me so hard, that I had her hand mark on my face for a good 30 minutes after class.

 

When I look back at it now, our skit may have been way ahead of our time in regards to the MeToo movement.

[SoCal4me2]

I would imagine that some of it related to the need to identify one among many. You know how the popularity of first names go, there’s one Tristan one day and in three months there’s 8 more. So someone decided that there was a need to know which was which, since 3 were good boys, 3 were bad and the other 2 were girls. So you had Tristan Miller, Tristan Hunter, Tristan Lake, Tristan Farrier, Tristan Cook, Tristan Miner, and the girls, maybe Tristan White and Tristan Brown for the families distinctive hair color. 
 

Just a part guess…

 

Sorta