ORIGIN OF SURNAMES OR FAMILY NAMES Family or surnames did not exist before the 10th or 11th centuries, being started by the patriarchs of Venice. The practice then spread over Europe, and by the 14th century were common in England. However, in certain areas of England, and some of the Norweign countries, the use of surnames came later. Surnames became necessary to distinguish persons with the same given name from each other. For example, two persons named John. Mabel McFartridge McCloskey, author of the book "Some Decendents of John Endecott, Gov. of the Mass. Bay Colony", noted that the name Endecott meant "an end cottage", which distinguished John who lived in the end cottage from another John who lived elsewhere. Eldon C. Smith, author of "New Dictionary of American Family Names" also makes this same observation. By-names Prior to the requirement of a family or surname, the lower classes had only given or first names, such as William, Robert, etc. They lived and worked on the lands of the nobles and great landowners. When the vassal appeared before the clerk who kept the records of the manor to pay fines and assesments, it would do no good for the lord's clerk to ask the peasant what additional name he possessed. He didn't have any other name and hadn't thought about the manor record matters. Therefore when the clerk entered the vassals name in the records, he added on his own a brief description, to distungish between two or more persons having the same first name. This became a by-name, but the particular individual was not know among his neighbors by this name. The early forms of most descriptive by-names were with prepositions, such as "atte Hill(at the hill)"; "de Bedeford(from Bedford)"; etc. English surnames have, generally, dropped the prepositions, except for a few like Atterbury, Underwood, and Bywater. Many French and Italian surnames have retained the prepositions, such as, Dupont, and Lo Bello. Sources of Family or Surnames (1) From the man's place of residence, either present or past (2) From the man's occupation (3) From the father's name (4) From the man's most prominet characheristic. Physical or otherwise. I will now give some examples of each category. (1) Place of residence a.When a son of a noble or great landowner inherited his father's land, it was only natural for him to inherit the name of the land. b. Close - dweller in an enclosure or fenced yard; Cox - dweller at the sigm of the cock, a common signboard; French - one who came from France, a Frenchman. c. Endicott - dweller at the end cottage. (2) Man's occupation Every town or village had one who ground grain, a miller(Miller); There was also one who made and sold shoes(Shoemaker). (3) From father's name Anderson - the son of Andrew; Johnson - the son of John. (4) Physical characteristics Reed, Read, Reade - the ruddy or red-haired man; Crookshank - the bowlegged man or one with a crooked leg. Corruption of Names As surnames have undergone various corruptions and changes in the countries where they arose, it is not surprising the change was greatly accelerated when brought to America. For the unlettered pioneer, names took on a roughly phonetic spelling. There was and still is a propensity to alter the name into a familiar word with a similar sound. For example, the Dutch Roggenfelder became the American Rockefeller; the German Dietz became Deeds in America. The number of alterations of this kind is endless. A personal experience. I met a man naned Hammer. His father was from Germany, but when he entered America, and gave his name to the customs official, the official said that that name would never work here, and said "Your name is Hammer". The bulk of the material above is from the Introducton to "New Dictoonary of American Family Nanes" by Elsdon C. Smith. Jerry Margrave, Sun City, Az. [email protected] Carol Pridgen Martoccia 903 East Fifth St. Greenville, NC 27858 PRIDGEN Homepage : http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Meadows/6297 PRIDGEN Archives: http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl List manager for the Pridgen Family and for Wilson County, NC (NCWilson)