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During the centuries of Roman empire, Latin speakers used family names as normal ways of identifying their familial relationships. After the western Roman empire fell, use of family names became rare in western Europe. Until the 12th century, most people throughout the western world did not again use or have a family name, and they were called by the single name they had (which was called a "first" or "given name" only after family names came into use). One of the most accepted theories for the origin of surname use attributes their introduction to the Normans and the Domesday Book of 1086. The use of surnames gradually became an accepted practice throughout Western Europe in the Middle Ages. In parts of the world, family names did not appear in common use until the 17th to 19th centuries, and they are unused in some cultures even today.

Overview

The word surname is name prefixed by the French word sur (meaning "on"), which derives from Latin super ("over" or "above"), meaning "additional name." As early as the 14th century it was also found spelled as sirname or sirename (suggesting that it meant "man's name" or "father's name") due to folk etymology.

The use of family names varies among cultures. In particular, Icelanders, Tibetans, Burmese, and Javanese often do not use a family name — well-known people lacking a family name include U Thant (Burmese), Suharto and Sukarno (see Indonesian names), and Dilber (Uyghur, a Turkic language). Also, many royal families do not use family names.

In some cultures, a woman's family name traditionally changes upon marriage, although few countries mandate such a change. Other modern options include combining both family names, changing neither name, or creating a new name, e.g. combining letters of previous surnames or creating a pseudonym unrelated to the previous surnames.

In English-, Dutch-, German-, French- and Scandinavian-speaking countries, people often have two or more given names, and the family name goes at the end. (Occasionally a surname is called the "second name", which can be confused with a middle name.) In Spain and Hispanic areas, people have one or more given names and two family names, one from the father and one from the mother. In Italy, people may have one or more given names, no middle name, and a family name. In the Portuguese-speaking countries, people can have one or two given names and from one up to four family names taken from the father and/or from the mother.

German Names

German family names were introduced during the late Middle Ages in the German language area. Usually, such family names are derived from nicknames. They are generally classified into four groups, based on the origin of a nickname:

• given names
• job designations
• bodily attributes
• and geographical references (including references to named buildings)

Given names often turned into family names when people were identified by their father's name. For example, the first name Ahrend developed into the family name Ahrends by adding a genitive s-ending, as in Ahrend's son.
Examples: Ahrends, Burkhard, Wulff, Friedrich, Benz. With many of the early city records written in latin, occasionally the latin genitive plural -i was used such as in Jakobi or Alberti or (written as -'y') in Mendelssohn Bartholdy

Job designations are the most common form of family names; anybody who had an unusual job would have been bound to be identified by it. Examples: Schmidt (smith), Müller (miller), Meier (farm administrator), Schulze (constable), Fischer (fisherman), Schneider (tailor), Maurer (mason), Bauer (farmer), Metzger or Fleischer (butcher), Töpfer or Toepfer (potter).

[note: the surname of Zeitler means "beekeeping in the woods" - see Zeidlerei as Profession]

Names derived from profession of first bearer:
Arzt - doctor; Bader - barber; Bauer - farmer; Bauman(n) - builder; Becker - baker; Brenner - distiller; Brauer, Breuer - brewer, brower, brewster; Eisenhauer, Eisenhower - iron cutter, miner; Farber - painter; Fischer - fisher; Fleischer - butcher; Gebauer - peasant or tiller of the field; Gerber - tanner; Kellerman - worker or dweller in a wine cellar or tavern; Kessler - coppersmith, own who sold or made cettles; Kramer - merchant; Krieg, Krieger - war, warrior, in Yiddish could mean tavern keeper; Kuster (Kuester) - sexton, Kunstler - artist or skilled artisan; Lederer, Lederman(n) - leather maker, tanner; Lehrer - teacher; Lesser - custodian of a forest, game keeper; Lichtermann - one who lit lamps, lamplighter; Lichtman - candle maker; Maurer - stone mason; Mehler (Mahler) - painter; Mehlinger, Mehlman(n), Melman - one who works with flour; Metzger - butcher; Muller - miller; Nachtman(n) - night watchman; Pfannnenschmidt - maker of pots and pans; Postman(n) - postal worker, (also a person from Postau); Puttkam(m)er - person who cleans rooms; Rader - wheelwright, one who makes wheels; or a person from Raden (moor, reedy place), one who thatched with reed; Reifsneider, Reifsnyder - one who made barrel hops; Reiter - horseman, also one who cleared land for tilling; Richter - judge or magistrate; Saltz, Saltzman(n) - one who processed and sold salt; Sandler - one who carts sand, repairs shoes, a cobbler; Schafer (German with Umlaut) was a sheperd; Schenker - one who kept a public house; Scherer - one who shaved others, a barber; Schlosser - lock smith; Schluter (Schlueter, Schluter with Umlaut) - the keeper of supplies; Schmidt - smith; Schmuker, Schmu(c)kler - one who decorates, ornaments; Schneider and Schroeder - tailor; Schultz, Schultheis - village mayor; Schreiber - secretary or scribe; Schreiner - cabinet maker; Schubert - one who made or sold shoes; Schulman(n) - school or synagogue man; Schumacher, Schu(h)man(n), Schuster - shoe maker, cobbler; Steinhauer - one who cuts and breaks stone; Studebaker - one who prepared or sold pastries; Wagner - wagoner, wagon maker; Weber - weaver; Wechsler - money changer.

Bodily attribute names are family names such as Krause (curly), Schwarzkopf (black head), Klein (small), Gross (tall).

Names derived from a physical or other characteristic of first bearer:
Altmann - old man; Hellmann - light man; Dick - fat person; Klein - short; Lange - the long one; Kurz - the short one. Lustig - happy person; Grossmann - the big one; Rot(h)bart - red beard; Weiss - white appearance; Schwar(t)z - black appearance; Schwarzkopf - black haired; Sus(s)man - affectionate person; Unruh - agitator or trouble maker; Schatz - treasure; Stamm, Stump - trunk (as of a tree); Stammler - stutterer; Stock - stick, tree trunk.

Geographical names are derived from the name of a city or village, or the location of someone's home. They often have the '-er' postfix that signifies origin (as in English New Yorker). Examples: Kissinger (from Kissingen), Schwarzenegger (from Schwarzenegg), Busch (bush), Bayer (from Bavaria, German Bayern). Böhm indicates that a family originated in Bohemia.

The place a person came from:
Cullen from Koeln/Cologne; Dannenberg, town of Dannenberg - pine tree covered mountain, three places in Germany; Dresdner from Dresden; Halpern or Halperin - one who came from Heilbronn in Wurttemberg; Mel(t)zer - can be a brewer or a person who came from Meltz; Berlin, Klutz and Lowenthal - place names in Germany; Silberg - two place names in Germany; Stein - numerous villages in German-speaking countries; stone, rock, marker; Sternberg - name of ten places in Germany; Shapiro, Shapira, Shapero, Shapera - one from Spyer, in the middle ages spelled Spira, and by Jews spelled Shapira; Pollack - one who came from Poland; Frank - from Franconia; Rockower, Rockow - ow is frequent and only in the low lands of Germany; Schlesinger - one who came from Silesia or Schleusingen in Thuringia; Schwei(t)zer - person from Switzerland, but also a dairyman.

Names derived from location of homestead:
Zumwald - at the forest; Kaltenbach - cold creek; Waldschmidt - smith at/in the woods. Meer - from the sea, ocean; Borg (northern German) or Burg - from or near a fortified castle; Bullwinkel - corner where bulls were kept; Adler (zum Adler) - eagle, may have derived from a house name; Rabe - crow.

A special case of geographical names were those derived from a building or landmark. Before the advent of street names and numbers, even for long times afterwards, many important buildings like inns, mills and farmsteads had names. Such a place was often better known than the people living in it; the people would get their 'family' name from the building. This name could be combined with a profession: Rosenbauer (rose-farmer, from a farmstead called 'the rose'); Kindlmüller (child's miller, from a mill named 'the christmas child', 'the prodigal child' or 'the king's child'). The name of the building could also be used as is: Bär (Bear); Engels (from Engel, angel).

Immigration, often sponsored by local authorities, also brought foreign family names into the German speaking regions. Depending on regional history, geography and economics, many family names have French, Dutch, Italian, Hungarian or Slavic origins. Sometimes they survived in their original form; in other cases, the spelling would be adapted to German (the Slavic ending ic becoming the German -itz or -itsch). Over time, the spelling often changed to reflect native German pronunciation (Sloothaak for the Dutch Sloothaag); but some names, such as those of French Huguenots settling in Prussia, retained their spelling but with the pronunciation that would come naturally to a German reading the name: Marquard, pronounced marcar in French, ended up being pronounced Markwart as it would as a German word.

Other

Names of saints:
Lukas, Matthias, Matthaeus, Paulus, Ruprecht and Nikolaus, which became family names.
After days of the week: Montag, Freitag, Sonntag; or Month: May.

Relating to objects/materials:
Hammer - hammer; Nagel - nail; Knopf - button, Stahl - steel; Eisen - iron; Erzberger - ore mountain; Gold - gold; Silber - silver; Baum - tree; Holz - wood; Stroh - straw; Keller - cellar, food storage space.

Regional differences:
Diminutives (-chen, -lein, -lin) can indicate regional origin. Examples: Buechlein, Boeglin.
Allemanic (Switzerland, Alsace, Baden) endings in -li; Swabian: -le; Bavaria/Austrian: -erl; North German: -gen, -ken.
Schleswig-Holstein and Friesland share the North-European tradition of adding -sen or -so(h)n to the father's name: Hansen, Claussen, Petersen, Petersohn, Jacobsohn, T(h)omsen.
Where immigration from the northeastern provinces of Mecklenburg and Pomerania was strong, you will find names ending in -ow (but note that Polish and Russian have that ending too).

The preposition von ("of") was used to distinguish Nobility; for example, if someone was baron of the village of Veltheim, his family name would be von Veltheim. In modern times, people who were elevated to nobility often had a 'von' added to their name. For example, Johann Wolfgang Goethe had his name changed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. This practice ended with the abolishment of nobility in Germany and Austria in 1919. In some areas, such as Switzerland, von is also used in geographical names that are not noble, as in von Däniken.

German-speaking Jews did not adopt family names until the 18th and 19th centuries. Some were allowed to choose their names, often creating two-part names containing well-sounding words. Examples: Goldblum (gold flower), Rosenthal (rose valley), Rothschild (red shield), Schwarzschild (black shield), Silberschatz (silver treasure), Stein (stone). Others had names assigned to them at the discretion of the administration, which picked in some cases even derogatory names. Yet others adopted traditional German names in order to blend in, most famously Meyer or Loewe, which could refer to the German 'Löwe' (Lion) as well as to the Jewish tribe of Levi.

With family names originating locally, many names display particular characteristics of the local dialects, such as the south German, Austrian and Swiss diminutive endings -l -el, '-erl, -le or -li as in Kleibl, Schäuble or Nägeli (from 'Nagel', nail)

Many family names have no obvious connection with a community, occupation, or station in life. One of these is Geier, which connotes a bird, a town or an oral history of peasant origin pertaining to a myth that human babies were stolen from a village by gigantic birds who gave up their captives only after the villagers attacked and destroyed their nests.

Dating back to the old Germanic world:
Albrecht (Albright), Die(d)trich, Gu(81)nther, Hagen, Hildebrandt, Hillenbrand, Oswald, Siegfried (Seyfried). Short forms: Konrad-Kunz, Heinrich-Hinz.

Prefixes, Suffixes
Neu is German for new: Neuman(n), Neuberger, Nieman(n), Nauman(n).
If a name ends in -mann, -burg, -berg, lich, -stein or t(h)al, it is a likely indication that the name is German. But in certain settlement areas, these endings could also refer to Swedish and Russian Jewish backgrounds.
There are German place names ending in -burg (castle), -bruck (bridge); -furt (ford), -berg (mountain), -reuth, -rode (clearing in woods).

English Names

In the British Isles, hereditary surnames were adopted in the 13th and 14th centuries, initially by the aristocracy but, eventually, by everyone. By 1400, most English people and Scottish people had acquired surnames, but many Irish people, Highland Scots and Welsh people did not adopt surnames until the 17th century, or later.

Most surnames of British origin fall into six types:

• Occupations (e.g., Smith, Archer, Baker, Walker)
• Personal characteristics (e.g., Short, Brown, Whitehead)
• Geographical features (e.g., Hill, Lee, Wood, Fields)
• Place names (e.g., London, Hamilton, Sutton, Flint, Laughton)
• For those descended from land-owners, the name of their holdings, manor or estate
• Patronymics and ancestry, often from a male's given name (e.g., Richardson, Williams, Johnson) or from a clan name (for those of Scottish origin, e.g., MacDonald, Forbes)

The original meaning of the name may no longer be obvious in modern English (e.g., the surname Cooper meant barrel maker and the name Tillotson is a matronymic from a diminutive for Matilda). A much smaller category of names relates to religion, though some of this category are also occupations. The names Bishop, Priest, or Abbot, for example, usually indicate that an ancestor worked for a bishop, a priest, or an abbot, respectively.

In the Middle Ages, when a man from a lower status family married an only daughter from a higher status family, he would take the wife's family name. In the 18th and 19th centuries in Britain, bequests were sometimes made contingent upon a man changing (or hyphenating) his name, so that the name of the legator continued. Although it is rare for English-speaking men to take the name of their wives, some men still choose to do so (such as among Canadian aboriginal groups) or, increasingly common in the United States, a married couple may choose a new last name entirely.

References
Rosa and Volker Kohlheim, Familiennamen: Herkunft und Bedeutung von 20000 Nachnamen, Duden 2000. ISBN 3-411-70851-4
http://www.serve.com/shea/germusa/surnames.htm .

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