Surnames and Their Meanings

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Surnames and Their Meanings

This is where you will find the results of the research into surnames and their meanings. As you can imagine this was and is a tremendous time consuming task and so I would ask for your patience while I add the names a letter at a time, however, if you are anxious to see your name on this site, let me know and I will do my best to place it on the page as soon as possible.

If you do not see the surname you are looking for please contact me and I will do my best to find the meaning of your surname.

About Surnames

The Surnames I Have Meanings For

" What's in a name? That which we call a rose; by any other name would smell so sweet."

William Shakespeare.

A Dictionary of English Surnames

P.H. Reaney

This dictionary of English surnames provides a guide to the origins of English surnames and how they developed over the centuries. A comprehensive survey of this popular subject, it provides advice on 16,000 surnames, giving full sources and dates. Different forms of names are also cross-referenced for ease of use. A historical and linguistic introduction to the subject is included, along with an appendix on how to trace the origin of a family name.

About Surnames:

William Camden wrote in Remaines of a Greater Worke Concerning Britaine:(1586)

About the yeare of our Lord 1000...surnames began to be taken up in France, and in England about the time of the Conquest, or else a very little before, under King Edward the Confessor, who was all Frenchified...but the French and wee termed them Surnames, not because they are the names of the sire, or the father, but because they are super added to Christian names as the Spanish called them Renombres, as Renames.

Have you ever had the experience of your name being misspelled, perhaps on an account or in a letter? What are the typical misspellings or pronunciation errors associated with the your name?

It strikes one very personally because our name is our possession and identification, and it tells the world who we are. Historically, names have served as a fingerprint of life, perhaps a basic clue to one's character. Knowledge of naming practices in our ancestral country of origin can help us trace our respective families back to a village or a place, tell us their occupation, or it can give us an idea about what our ancestors looked like.

The fascinating story of surnames dates back thousands of years. How and where they began, what they originally meant, and their various spellings, is called the study of onomastics. The first known people to acquire surnames were the Chinese. Legends suggest that the Emperor Fushi decreed the use of surnames, or family names, about 2852 BC. The Chinese customarily have three names. The surname is placed first and comes from one of the 438 words in the sacred Chinese poem Po-Chia-Hsing.

The family name is followed by a generation name, taken from a poem of 30 characters adopted by each family. The given name is then placed last.

In early times, the Romans had only one name. Later, they changed to using three names. The given name stood first and was called a "praenomen." This was followed by the "nomen" which designates gens, or clan. The last name designates the family and is known as the "cognomen." Some Romans added a fourth name, the "agnomen," to commemorate an illustrious action, or remarkable event. As the Roman empire began to decline, family names became confused and single names once again became customary.

During the early Middle Ages, people were referred to by a single given name. But gradually the custom of adding another name as a way to distinguish individuals became popular. Certain distinct traits became commonly used as a part of this practice. For instance, the place of birth, or the use of the father's name. By the 12th century, the use of a second name had become so widespread that, in some places, it was considered vulgar not to have one. However, even though this custom was the source of all surnames used today, the second names used in the early Middle Ages did not apply to families, nor were they hereditary. Whether these second names evolved into fixed hereditary surnames is difficult to pinpoint with any exactness since the practice advanced slowly over a period of several hundred years. Many fixed surnames existed alongside the more temporary bynames and descriptive terms used by the people as second names.

The modern hereditary use of surnames is a practice that originated among the Venetian aristocracy about the 10th or 11th centuries. Crusaders returning from the Holy Land took note of this custom and soon its use spread throughout Europe. France, the British Isles, and then Germany and Spain began applying the practice as the need to distinguish individuals became more important. By the 1370's the word surname was found in documents, and had come to acquire some emotive and dynastic significance. Men sometimes sought to keep their surname alive by encouraging a dependent to adopt it when they had no direct descendants of their own in the male line. Although we can see that the handing on of a surname has become a matter of pride, we can only guess as to the reasons for adopting hereditary surnames in the first place. Government became more and more a matter of written record. As the activities of government, particularly in the assessment of taxation and the exaction of military service, touched an ever-widening range of the population, perhaps it became necessary to identify individuals accurately. In some of the larger urban communities especially, personal names were no longer sufficient to distinguish people for social as well as administrative purposes. In the countryside manorial administration, with its stress on hereditary succession to land, needed some means of keeping track of families and not just of individuals. We can be certain that by about 1450 at the latest, most people of whatever social rank had a fixed hereditary surname.

This surname identified the family, provided a link with the family's past, and would preserve its identity in the future. It is not surprising that the preservation of surnames became a matter of family pride. It was a cause for much regret if a man had no male descendants to whom he could pass on the surname he himself had inherited and had borne with pride. Beginning in the 15th and 16th centuries, family names gained in popularity in Poland and Russia. The Scandinavian countries, bound by their custom of using the father's name as a second name, did not begin using family surnames until the 19th century. Turkey waited until 1933, when the government forced the practice on its people. In nearly every case, surnames were first used by the nobility and wealthy landowners, and the practice then trickled down to the merchants and commoners. The first permanent names were those of Barons and landowners who derived their names from their manors and fiefs. These names became fixed through the hereditary nature of their lands. For the members of the working and middle classes seeking status, the practices of the nobility were imitated, leading to the widespread use of surnames. It would be a difficult task to work out a simple classification of family names due to spelling and pronunciation changes over the years. Many old words had different meanings, or are now obsolete. Many family names were dependent on the competency and discretion of the writer. The same name can sometimes be spelled in different ways even in the same document.

Family names have come down to us in various ways. They may have grown out of a person's surroundings or employment, or the name of an ancestor.

Most surnames evolved from four general sources:

OCCUPATION: The local house builder, food preparer, grain grinder and suit maker, would be named respectively: John Builder, John Cook, John Miller and John Taylor. The person who made barrels was called Cooper. The blacksmith was called Smith. Every village had its share of Smiths, Carpenters and Millers and the Millers in one town weren't necessarily related to the Millers in the next.

LOCATION: The John who lived over the hill became known as John Overhill; the one who dwelled near a stream might be dubbed John Brook. Many locational surnames originated as place-names. You can tell that a surname is a locational place-name if it ends with one of the regular place-name elements, such as, Hill, Ford, Wood, Brook, Well and so on. Less easily recognised locational surnames end with, Ton, Ham, Wick, Stead meaning a farm or small settlement. Other common locational endings are, Don (a hill), Bury, (a fortification) or Leigh, or Ley (a clearing).

Patronymic: (Fathers name). Many of these surnames can be recognised by the termination "son", such as Williamson, Jackson, etc. Some endings used by other countries to indicate son are: Armenians (Ian); Danes and Norwegians (Sen); Finns (Nen); Greeks (Poulos); Spaniards (Ez); and Poles (Wiecz). Prefixes denoting son are the Welsh (ap), the Scots and Irish (Mac), and the Norman (Fitz). So, John the son of Randolph became John Fitz-Randolph. In Wales, David the son of John tacked ap in front of his father's name, and David ap John was soon being called David Upjohn. In Scotland, Gilleain's descendants were known as MacGilleain and later shortened to MacLeab, McClean, McLane, and all the other versions.

CHARACTERISTIC: An unusually small person might be labelled Small, Short, Little or Lytle. A large man might be named Longfellow, Large, Lang, or Long. Many persons having characteristics of a certain animal would be given the animals name. Examples are: A sly person might be named Fox; a good swimmer (Fish); a quiet man (Dove); etc.

Many historians believe that surnames derived from places (locational) were the first to become hereditary. Surnames evolving from nicknames or descriptive traits (characteristic) are also of early origin. Surnames taken from occupations came later, and those of Patronymic origin were the last to become hereditary. Even though patronymic names have been in use a long time, they would change with every generation: William's son John would be known as John Williamson, while his son William would be William Johnson. Surnames that are the most fun and the most embarrassing, are the characteristic names. One word of caution, though: do not be distressed if your name originally meant something you consider uncomplimentary. Remember that the definition may have applied to an ancestor who lived centuries ago. There are obvious characteristic surnames. You cannot always take at face value what names seem to mean, because of changes in word meanings over the centuries. Hence the English name Stout, which brings to mind a rather fat fellow, is actually indicative of an early ancestor who was easily irritated, a noisy fellow. There are some names that leave us with an immediate picture of a person with a most distinctive physical characteristic: Stradling, an English name meaning one with bowed legs: the French Beaudry, one with good bearing, beautiful; and the Irish Balfe, one who stammered and stuttered. Our ancestors pulled no punches. You will have to admit that occasionally they spared no feelings. Knowing that different spellings of the same original surname are a common occurrence, it is not surprising that dictionaries of surnames indicate probable spelling variations of say, the Glen surname to be Glenn, Glinn and de Glyne.

The Surnames I Have Meanings For:

Created by John Hugh Glen. Url http://www.btinternet.com/~johnhglen/