> > There are some anomalies here that I for one would appreciate advice and > > comment on. Do the compilers of surname-dictionaries offer any proof that > > an ignorant old auditor can take to the bank? I have to assume they do, and > > I would like to know what it is. Old auditors do not like anomalies. > > While focusing primarily on Hispanic surnames, [this] website has a > lot to offer in the way of answers. > http://home.att.net/~Alsosa/surnames.htm > Elaine Thanks, Elaine. It seems to be an interesting site. However, it leaves my specific question unanswered, and uses simplistic get-outs such as, "It was logical to associate an individual with his occupation and this became a source of many Hispanic surnames." No proof of any sort is given to support the conclusion "...and this became...". "Any physical characteristic could become associated with an individual" - which is what a post-Enron auditor would call an unsubstantiated assumption. "In order to reduce the confusion, individuals with the same name were differentiated from one another by various characteristics." So how come we have so many Juan Garcias and Bill Smiths? I live on an island which until recently had 15,000 people with only a few surnames. What happened was that the islanders differentiated by means of (sometimes weird) FIRST names, not surnames. At the date when surnames were reckoned to have been adopted - whenever that was, in the various parts of the British Isles - 15,000 was a pretty big town. Smaller villages would not have had a problem with differentiation. Look at China with its hundred million Wongs and Lees! Here below is an extract from the Hispanic-surnames website that pretty much sums up my problem. I would guess similar examples could be found in British surname-origins books. "This did not prevent individuals from arbitrarily changing their surnames, however. This is something that happened often as the story of Don Bernardo Alvarez, a soldier in the 1200's, shows us. After getting drunk in a village Inn, Don Bernardo had trouble finding camp and fell asleep near a bed of Roses. The experience of waking up to the smell of roses (especially with a hangover) promptly led him to change his surname to "de las Rosas". Spanish history is replete with these instances which can make it more difficult to trace one's ancestry to the more distant past." Now, that may well have happened, and it's a fun story. But is it anything more than a fun story? Gordon Barlow