Quote:
Originally Posted by fringe_dweller
i was under the impression that a LOT of surnames were handed out willy nilly, almost half jokingly, by town officials during the beginning of the industrial revolution, as peasant rural folk became urbanised when moving en masse to centres to work in factories, and records had to be kept/made, making many just meaningless? much like some indigenous folk experienced here early on
ok, Jones, Morris, Watt, O'Kane
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Surnames started to be used as far back as the 12th Century, but they weren't all that common until about the 14-15th Centuries. There is some evidence of sporadic usage earlier than the 12th, but it's not widely known amongst the general population of the time. Most early surnames were patronymic or toponymic...later on the usage of trades as surnames caught on....such as Cooper, Thatcher, Tanner, Smith etc.