How did surnames originate?

At what point in history did families start acquiring names? What country did this start in? How were surnames chosen? Just curious..

 

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Pioter Sergeivitch . Son of Sergei ///Id, Jesus of Nazaret, Tom Schmidt. Tom the schmidt of the vilage

 

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I only recollect 3 Biblical figures with true last names: Mary Magdelene, Judas Iscariot, and Simon Magus. None of these figures were especially well thought of. Did only bad people have surnames back then? BTW, some might say Julius Caesar is an example of a surname. Not really since Caesar was a title of position and not a family name. It'd be like saying Baruch President. Mark Anthony? Now THAT may be a true surname.

 

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Simon the cyrinean that helped carry the cross for Yashua . John the Baptist . Herod the tetrarck , Joseph the Carpinter

 

All titles denoting region of origin or occupation. Not true surnames. Like saying George the Garbageman, Bill the Mailman, Elisabeth the Nurse, etc.

 

Don't know about ALL of them but many originated from occupations: John Smith, Baker, Cooper (barrel maker), etc. and many others as "son of" as in Thomason, Johnson, etc.

 

But that's how many surnames originated. George the Garbageman eventually became George Garbageman, Bill the Barber became Bill Barber, Etc. Other characteristic were also used. Tom, who lived by where two rivers joined, became Tom Rivers.

 

True enough. And then there was the "son of so and so" surname. Patterson= Patter's son. Williamson= William's son. Johnson= John's son. Richardson= Richard's son.

 

Friend this how it starts in different region . Name for identification start win the trade of the individual and if you look in the Scandinavian you will find . Johanson , stevenson , tomson , it end up in who is you father I mentioned Pioter Sergeivich which mean peter the son of Sergey in slavic culture , now if you look into Ashkenazim culture you will find colors like green brown silver, gold, copper, and then there are those which have a choise to bring back an ancestral name example Perez.

 

It should be mentioned that surnames and family names are not exactly the same thing. Surnames (French sur = "on") are names that are tacked on to the common name to distinguish people with the same common name - e.g. John the Thatcher and John the Miller. "Farmer" would be used as a surname less often because almost everybody was a farmer.

Some surnames were eventually passed down from generation to generation and became family names - e.g. Alan Shepherd, Scott Carpenter. Other family names might be derived from location - e.g. John of the Woods. It would make sense to call his descendents "Woods" if they still lived there.

If I had to guess when it all stared, I'd say probably soon after the invention of names, which was probably soon after the invention of speech.

 

It should also be mentioned that dictionaries uniformly define surnames primarily as family names and secondarily as nicknames.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/surname

 

Roman personal names generally had three parts. Caesar's full name was Gaius Julius Caesar. Gauis was the equivalent of what we call first name, Julius was the name of his clan, while Caesar was the family name.

 

Thank you. I stand corrected. Wikipedia confirmed that Caesar was indeed originally a family name or cognomen:

"Caesar (plural Caesars; Latin: Caesar, plural: Caesares) is a title of imperial character. It derives from the cognomen of Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator. The change from being a familial name to a title adopted by the Roman Emperors can be dated to about AD 68/69, the so-called "Year of the Four Emperors"."--Caesar (title) Wikipedia

This may actually answer my question about by whom and when surnames were started. Roman citizens' last names were called their cognomens, about which Wikipedia says:

"The cognomen (/kɒɡˈnoʊmɛn/,[1] /ˈkɒɡnəmən/;[2] Latin: [koːŋˈnoːmen]; Latin plural cōgnōmina; con- "together with" and (g)nōmen "name") was the third name of a citizen of ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. The cognomen started as a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became hereditary. Hereditary cognomina were used to augment the second name (the family name, or clan name) in order to identify a particular branch within a family or family within a clan. Outside of this particular use of the word, the term has taken on a variety of other meanings in the contemporary era."---http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognomen

 

If I had to guess, I think "names", i.e. vocal distinguishers, PRECEEDED language as we think of it today.

 

Surnames became family names.

But by the original definition of "surname", aren't middle names ALSO surnames?

 

Actually, Egyptians had several names back in the time of the first dynasty, no?

 

You tell me..I have no idea.

 

You're probably right. Individual forms of "Hey, you!" would have been among the first "words".

 

“While given names have been used from the most distant times to identify individuals, 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.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_name#History