What Your Last Name Means

hello and welcome to fire of learning I'm Justin while our first names are of course more personal our last names also called surnames or family names perhaps carry more weight they connect us not only to our immediate family but to our ancestors and the lives they lived through understanding what our last names mean we can better understand the story of our own existence and place ourselves within the larger picture of human history in this video we are going to go over common surnames and explore their meaning and Origins so let's get to it before we begin I would like to thank Aziz najem and Harper sovanowski for being our most recent supporters on patreon they join these supporters who make these videos possible so I was initially planning to do this video like I did my two videos on given name meanings where I listed a series of names and talked about each of their individual meanings and Origins I am going to do that here to an extent however I will also be structuring this video into categories for two reasons first it's a lot more organized and easier secondly for those of you who have maybe a more obscure last name or something that I don't mention this will make it much easier for you to determine what your last name means while naming people in general is pretty much a universal practice surnames as we understand them are not even in Western culture they have not always existed especially again as we use them today even just looking at the history of Europe alone naming systems can get confusing Roman men for example had a given name the name of a gens sort of like a clan the name of a family within the gens and maybe a title or a nickname like Africanus conqueror of Africa modern European last names do not really go back that far however Chinese last names are that ancient but modern European last names mostly date to the Middle Ages and early modern era surnames became used more often in England for example following the Norman Conquest in the 11th century and became more common throughout Europe in the 12th century when the societal structure changed due to population growth in such a way that they became more necessary although they still weren't the norm they became much more standard in the 16th century in the Early Middle Ages as mentioned our current naming system wasn't really in place but there were ways of identifying people more precisely one of those ways was associating people with their line of work their trade it makes sense for people to want to identify with their trade and is also a good way of distinguishing people in a local community if someone says I'm looking for William in a modestly sized Village they may be asked to specify William the Smith or William the Fisher or maybe William the Conqueror although I I'm pretty sure there's just one there are many last names which have been derived from medieval or early modern occupations some are obvious Smith Fisher Barber although barbers in the Middle Ages didn't solely cut hair they also did minor surgeries and things like Dentistry getting your wisdom teeth removed in the Middle Ages ah what a bundle of fun that must have been Miller Brewer Carpenter Taylor Shepherd farmer Shoemaker and Sandler Baker and cook Potter Archer butcher Gardner Hunter judge Knight Weaver these names refer to for the most part the associated occupation if you have one of these names there is a likelihood you had an ancestor or two who did this job these are straightforward however there are other names in the same category which are less obvious because they are in a different language or even just old or Middle English well Old English is basically a different language but Bailey is a Norman name which spread to England it was an administrative office people held a baxter was a female cook Moore has a number of Origins we will discuss but it could refer to someone who worked with boats and such a Clark was a kind of scribe from the Latin clericos Chandler was someone who made candles and worked with wax compare it with the word chandelier Faulkner is an older pronunciation of Falconer similar to this are Hawkins Hawk Hawkman and Fowler someone who worked with birds of prey Mason a stone Mason someone who worked with stone and related areas buildings architecture page was a kind of young servant boy Reeves a grifa was a kind of Representative of a lord a sawyer was someone who would saw wood and work with it and such a Cooper was a barrel maker a thatcher was someone who would build ruse with straw and such and repaired them when Big Bad Wolves blew them down a walker was either someone who worked with cloth or was a kind of guard a marshal from the Frankish marescalcos was someone who worked with horses right was a kind of General name for a laborer or a worker Carter Carson and Wagner refer to someone who transported things by cart or wagon Fletcher was generally an arrow maker who had as well Boyers who worked on bows banisters tended to work more with crossbows a Tyler was someone who made and laid tiles A Glover made and sold gloves Abbott was the name of someone who headed a monastery or who worked for an Abbott during this time period these weren't technically surnames they're called by names it would take some time for them to evolve into modern surnames some Europeans went without surnames as we have them today until the 19th century of course it wasn't just England where this sort of thing developed it was really found across Europe and even Beyond and many people in the English-speaking world today especially in places like the US and Canada have equivalent names in foreign languages German names Zimmerman Carpenter Schaefer for Shepherd Bower or farmer Schumacher or Shoemaker Eisenhower an ironworker Weber or Weber for a weaver Schneider for Taylor Becker for Baker and Mueller or Mueller for Miller Mulder is Dutch familiar Schmidt in German is Smith in Polish it's koal where we get Kowalski Cohen is a common Jewish name referring to a priest Carrero Spanish for warrior likewise in French Taylor Marshall a merchant obvious this would be a nightmare if we did this today but when Society was much more isolated and much less developed it was a very practical and not too confusing way of identifying people Justin video maker video man video or vid video anyway frankly we could do this all day especially when you add any cognates of other languages but there are other ways that last names have come into being another very common type are patronymic names many of these names end in Sun Johnson son of John Thompson son Thomas Nicholson son of Nicholas Watson son of Walter Robinson Richardson Stevenson Simpson Jackson Jameson jenkinson and so on sometimes the suffix sun was dropped and replaced with just an S although this is not always referred to a sun and might have referred to a servant of said individual Walters Evans Michaels Williams Adams Davies Jones which is the Welsh form of Johnson you get the picture again this is quite practical if one asks where might I find Eric Eric son of Eric or Eric son of William furthermore this was not simply just a way of identifying people but it also displayed someone's Family Ties in a sense that connected them to their fathers and families interestingly they actually still do this in places like Iceland alongside metronomic names the mother's name as well on occasion it really is fascinating how Iceland developed with their culture in semi-isolation from the rest of Europe but I digress if you're the son of Stefan gunerson in Iceland your last name is stefansom if you are the daughter you are Stefan's daughter hopefully my pronunciation was decent enough there we see this in general when we look at the Vikings throughout Scandinavia though this changed for the most part in Mainland Scandinavia but not in Iceland settled by the Norsemen in the Middle Ages a similar thing is done in Hebrew at times with Ben meaning son of and Bot meaning daughter of in many Eastern European countries such as Greece Finland and many of the Slavic Nations the last name may change according to the gender of the bearer as well the patronymic naming system was so simple and effective that again we find most of Europe did the same thing in Spanish names that end with e z imply son of or descendant of this may go back all the way to the visigothic language the Visigoths were a Germanic tribe that ruled over much of Spain after the fall of West of Rome Gomez Rodriguez Menendez Martinez fun fact the Spanish may also take on multiple last names from both of their parents the Portuguese do this as well which is why you may hear a Spaniard refer to himself as Jose Luis Alvarez Rodriguez Garcia Valero Garcia ascencio Menendez Diaz right before he challenges you to a store duel you'll recognize the Irish and Scottish equivalents as well as Mac abbreviated to Mick sometimes McDonald son of Donald Mackenzie son of McKenzie McDavid son of David MacArthur McNeil and so on in French sun is fees in the Norman French equivalent it was pronounced Feats Fitz Fitzgerald fitzjohn it's Roy Roy coming from Hua the son of a king fits typically later referred to in illegitimate child specifically in these Scandinavian languages sun is sometimes s-e-n Eriksen kenolsen and sometimes ragnarson it wasn't always about the father however and sometimes extended to the grandfather or a more distant ancestor the O'Briens descendants of Brian boru High King of Ireland O'Neill or Clary O'Donovan these are Irish clan names it's also quite common to see names with the preposition of before them we don't really do this in English but it is more common than you might think and other European languages tend to mean of or of the do is French though it can come from Spanish French Portuguese or other romance languages D and Del or Italian Von is German and Van is Dutch these prepositions can be connected to things like son of but are more common in another way of deriving last names place names these prepositions may be what are called nobiliary particles meaning that they refer to someone being a lord of a certain area or at least a relative of said Lord a hereditary title it was a way of showing that they owned the place but it was also a way for commoners to show that they were from a place as well in English as was mentioned the of was typically later dropped and people were left with just place names Newton Hamilton Washington Ford which was a kind of Crossing Crawford Townsend Hampton Walton Barton Copeland Kimberly Whitehead Kent wall they would also refer to more specific towns and places from which people came as well though you don't see too many londons or parises walking around there are people with these last names but people in large cities tended not to take such names John of London well even in the Middle Ages that wouldn't help you much if you were in London around thousands of other people many of whom are also Johns you also have names derived from natural geographic features Brooks Hill Lee which is a word for Meadow Rivers Stone Woods Moore Perry by the pear trees pool likewise there is dupole Dupont in French of the bridge di Marino an Italian of the sea Van Damme and Dutch of the dam Da Vinci of the town of Vinci Stein in German of the stone Berg in German of the mountain or Hill not to be confused with Borg which refers specifically to a castle in German but means town or city Bach in German means Creek this goes on and on but I believe you understand the basic model here of how that works again before the early modern era these names weren't exactly set in stone it wasn't necessarily something you carried with you for your whole life if you move to another town or work there you could be identified with that area another major source of surnames in the modern world are hypocorisms surnames derived from what you could call nicknames but I believe a better word for them would be monikers these are names that were derived from descriptions of someone's physical attributes or character again this one likely isn't too surprising Erica read Charles the bald pep in the short these types of monikers extended among the general population as well throughout history and remain with us to this day sometimes they were descriptions of literal physical features like hair color eye color or a color of clothing that was frequently warm brown gray white black and green are common last names in the English-speaking World red is indirectly common as well in names like Russell Reed Roth and German which is common among Jews and Flynn of Irish origin Dunn is also Celtic sometimes referring to a dark color like brown more German equivalents included Schwartz which means black Vice or Weiss which means white although keep in mind white can also be a character trait regarding the color White's ties to Purity Brown is believe it or not Brown there are also names regarding things like body size height strength stamina and such small long Hardy little short Grant in some circumstances young though this may refer to a younger son especially of a noble more often common German equivalents Klein which means small gross or Grossman meaning large Allen from a Celtic origin means handsome also Celtic Campbell means crooked mouth and Cameron means crooked nose I mentioned character traits these tended to be good in some circumstances literally good as well as good men good all in German Goodman right Fair glad and German fro or Froman there are also analogies to animals wolf is a very common one wolf in German and Scandinavian languages Lopez in Spanish bird is not a very common last name in English but Vogel the German equivalent is more common likewise not many people have the last name Eagle in English but the German last name Adler is more common Fox is not an unheard of surname either probably referring to cleverness though it may also refer to a red-haired person Bernard also a first name from Bernhard a dramatic origin strong like a bear in summary these are the four main origins of Western last names place names occupations relationships especially to the father or the clan and nicknames or monikers typically their Origins lie very much in the past to the point at which the modern bearers may have no connection to namesake I nearly forgot to mention we still do have the creation of new last names when people decide to legally change their last name such as Mr 10 million and Mr Optimus Prime I hope you enjoyed this video If so I invite you to come check out the rest of fire alerting especially the videos I've done on name meanings given name meanings and to subscribe to see more videos like this in the future to help with the cost of producing these videos a donation on patreon would be a big help a special thanks to our patreon supporters once again listed here we are also on Instagram

Channel: Fire of Learning

Views: 3,810,506

Keywords: Last name, Meaning, Surname, Family name, Origins, History, fathers name, Place name, Occupational name, Monikers, English names, German names, French names, Spanish names, Europe

Id: xT6ixR1doQg

Length: 16min 16sec (976 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 10 2019