Eric H. Johnson wrote: Except that the Johnstone came from stone referring to estate, not son. And the 1790 census puts Johnson third, not fourth. There were 21,000+ Smiths (based on a trade as in black smith, silver smith...), 11,000 Jones and 10,600 Johnsons. Here in Central Iowa, it looks like Johnson could outnumber any three other names put together in many area phone books, though officially we Johnsons just outnumber Anderson and Larson individually, not together. You missed my comment that in old English, Fitz meant "son of" so Fitz Gerald would be the son of Gerald. That doesn't explain the use of Fitz alone. There were Jonssons from Sweden in the Swedish settlements along the Delaware that were established by 1638 that blended into the New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania colonies in the next 150 years and likely their names became fully Anglicized like their customs. So there is some early history of Svenske Johnson in this country as well as Johnsons from the English islands. Gerald > > Gerald, > > In almost all of its forms, Johnson and other "son" names can be traced back > to some form of patronymic. The Scandinavians are the most prevalent simply > because they abandoned the practice most recently, and had their largest > wave of emigration to the US about the same time (as you stated, mid to late > 1800's). As I recall, in England patronymics were formally outlawed by edict > in the early 1600's, although the practice had already been mostly abandoned > by that time. With very little assistance from Scandinavians, Johnson was > already the fourth most common surname in the newly formed United States at > the time of the American revolution. > > Further, the practice of patronymics (and occasionally matronymics) can be > found in almost every culture. As a percentage of population, surnames which > originated as patronymics comprise the single largest category of name > origins, where the other common origins are, trade names (Smith, Shoemaker), > place names (Waters, Rivers), and nick names (Brown, Kennedy). If you look > at the top five most frequently occurring surnames in the US, Smith, > Johnson, Williams, Jones and Brown respectively, only Smith and Brown are > not patronymics, while Johnson and Jones are different forms of the same > name (see below). > > In addition to "son" (generally English or Swedish), other common patronymic > prefixes or suffixes include: > > Mc, Mac, O' - MacDonald, O'Leary - Scottish, Irish > s, up - Williams, Upjohn - Welsh > sen - Christiansen - Norwegian, > Danish > ez - Martinez, Rodriguez - Spanish > sohn - Mendelssohn - German > de - DeLorean - French > di - DiMarco - Italian > ovich - Ivanovich - Russian > ibn - Ibn Nasser - Egyptian (?) > al - Al Fayed - Arabic > > I suspect "ski" (Pulaski), "wicz" (Abramowicz) and a few other suffixes are > patronymics as well, but I do not know for sure. > > Lastly, fortunately there are many spellings for names that all mean Johnson > or "son of John". A partial list includes: > > Johnson > Johnston > Jones > Jackson > Johns > Upjohn > Ivanovich > Juarez > Johansson, Johanssen > Janson, Jansson, Janssen, Jensen > Jonsson, Jonssen > > And many more. If a common spelling were accepted, we would have to create > one phone directory dedicated to Johnsons, and one for everyone else <g>. > > Regards, > Eric > > > It has been said that Johnsons are from Sweden. But we are also from > > Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, all of Scandinavia, Germany (maybe > > spelled Johansson or Jonsson or mangled from Jorganson), and Normandy. > > Its been reported that there was a Johnson with the Norman invaders of > > England in 1066. I think its true that Johnsons populate the whole earth > > today. Many times I figure any family tree that doesn't show Johnsons is > > just incomplete... > > > > It may be that some of the English Johnsons came down from Viking > > invaders long before 1066, but in old English Johnstone meant the estate > > and many servants took that as their name. The prefix Fitz in some eras > > of old English meant "son of" also to confuse the issue. > > > > Worse confusion comes from Scandinavia where until about a century ago > > the practice was to use SON as a suffix the father's given name (Dotter > > for girls), so the last name of children of Sven Larson would be Svenson > > and Svendotter. The last name didn't carry through the generations > > unless the first name did too. > > ==== JOHNSON Mailing List ==== > Be nice to one another. > > ============================== > The RootsWeb WorldConnect Project: > Tens of millions of individuals... and counting. > http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/