h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The evolution of or short history of.

How did they come to be, when did they first appear?
What do the various 'prefixes' mean? O', Mac, Mc, Van, De, Da, etc... (I presume they mean 'of' a certain line, similar to -son names)
How did the most popular names become so popular? Smith, Brown, Miller, etc...
How were (or are) surnames determined? Are there still new ones being created, or are they all just handed down through families?

Can't fathom what made me think of this, but it's occupied my thoughts for the past few days and I don't have the time or energy to research right now (not to mention my rather small plate is already over-full).

Takers?

Rather than being a 'taker', I have a few 'points' that I'd love to have clarified...,

Double-barrel surnames (eg Smith-Jones, or Spanish version 'Smith y Jones'): is there one (or more) accepted 'norm' regarding which (maternal or paternal) surname goes 1st/last? What would Mr Smith-Jones and Ms Brown-White call their offspring?

The 'prefix' Fitz: does/did it ever really mean 'bastard-son-of'?

It's not just maternal/paternal, eg Chris Evert-Lloyd.

Here's an obscure point I'd love to have obscured.
In the US South (probably other places as well, but I don't know about them) you could tell what political party a family was associated with by their last name. For instance, Millers, Taylors and Carvers were Democrats, Wests, Wood and Berrys were Republicans.

(My last name is Taylor and my roots are in the south... surprise- I'm a Democrat. )

'De' and 'da' are 'of', so the surname would then refer to the town the person comes from. I believe 'Mac' is 'son of'.

Re: Spanish double surnames. The first one is the father's first surname and the second one the mother's first surname. Women don't take the husband's surname when they marry. If someone refers to themselves using only one surname they use the first (father's) one.

Smith, Miller, Taylor, Cooper, etc refer to the jobs people did.

As for new surnames being created, um, Bowie? I was going to include Zappa but apparently that *is* the family name.


az

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Not sure about the bastard bit, but it's certainly son-of, in this case from Norman French.

Surnames tend to appear when communities become large enough for first names to be insufficient. Additional names tend to be informal at first, in the form of patronymics, occupation, place of residence or origin, or physical description. These gradually become formalised as proper surnames.

Noggin

"I don't have the time or energy to research right now"

It's not much research. There are already books on the subject. I even have one on the shelf in front of me. Besides which we covered it in primary school (but that was a long time ago when education was somewhat better than it is now).

Mac is the scottish prefix meaning "son of". O is the Irish prefix, literally meaning "grandson of". Both of these came to be surnames.

Some countries use patronymics rather than surnames, which are the father's first name followed by something to indicate "child of", but unlike Mac, they use the actual father's first name, so in Iceland, Jón's children will have the names Jónsson and Jónsdottir. Jón's own patronymic will be something else based on his own father.

In Russia, it was normal to have a patronymic and a surname: Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky. His father's name was Peter. Peter's daughter would have the patronymic Petrova (stress on the VA). But in later years, the patronymics started to be used as surnames, hence Navratilova and Shostakovich.

Arabs don't really use surnames very much. Most of them are known by their first names, so it was perfectly correct to talk about Saddam rather than Hussein, whether you were for or against him.

An Irish surname prefix is "Gill" meaning "servant of". The Dublin phone book lists Gilbarry, Gilbride, Gildea, Gilhooley etc. One is worthy of particular note: Gillespie. This is from "Servant of the Bishop". Irish Catholic Bishops were not allowed to marry, but if their housekeeper had an "unexplained" child, it would be given the surname Gillespie.

'ap' is the Welsh equavilant of 'son of', as in Ancelyn ap Gwalchmai.

ap very rarely appears in modern surnames, though Price (ap Rhys) is moderately common. The most common form is an s added to the name (Jones, Williams, Evans, Davies etc).

Noggin

Icelandic surnames are quite interesting to me. You take the christian name of your father and add 'son' or 'dottir' to it, and that is your surname.

For example, there is a football manager by the name of Gudjon Thordarson. He has three sons - Bjarni, Thordur and Joey - all of whom go under the surname of Gudjonsson play football in the English Championship (the division below the Premiership) for Plymouth, Stoke and Leicester respectively.

If they have sons, they will presumbly adopt the surnames of Bjarnason, Thordarson and (presumably) Joeysson. So the only way Gudjon Thordarson could end up with a grandson who shares his name is if Thordur Gudjonsson has a son and decides to name him Gudjon.