Q: WHERE do our surnames come from and what was the first surname? Did Adam and Eve have a surname and are any new ones created today? - George Martin, Trimdon Station.

A: HEREDITARY surnames are mentioned as far back as 2852BC when the Chinese Emperor is said to have decreed the use of surnames. However, no record of the first-ever surname is known and no record mentions Adam and Eve having a surname. Hereditary surnames did not become widespread in the West until the 12th or 13th Century, although some areas adopted them at an earlier period. Before this time, most people made do with just one name and, where a second name was used, it usually took the form of a patronymic name passed from father to son. This system survived in Scandinavia until recent centuries and is still used today in Iceland. Under this system, if a man called Magnus Olafsson had a son called Olaf, his son's full name would be Olaf Magnusson - the second name identified him as the son of Magnus. If the same Magnus had a daughter, Gudrun, she would be called Gudrun Magnusdottir - dottir meaning daughter. A similar system existed among the Gaelic people of ancient Ireland where the prefixes Mac (son of) and O' (grandson) were used. However, by the fourth Century, some of these patronymic names were fixed and thus became hereditary surnames. But it was not until after the Norman Conquest that surnames became common in England. The driving force was a bureaucracy that needed to identify individuals for the purposes of taxation. It was around this time that surnames became common in other parts of Western Europe, such as France and Spain. This was also the case in Italy, although some surnames had begun to develop there as early as the 10th Century. Most of the surnames adopted throughout Europe at this time were derived from four main sources. One of the most common groups were those surnames that derived from the earlier patronymic names, but other types included surnames derived from places or localities, nicknames and surnames that described an occupation. The most obvious example of this last category is the surname Smith. Surnames are rarely created today except perhaps by deed poll where someone might modify the spelling of their name. People who acquire nicknames get some sense of how names might have developed in times gone by, but a person's nickname is unlikely to develop into an official surname as once happened many centuries ago.

Published: Monday, February 4, 2002

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