US last names

The history of surnames

Did you find your name on the list? If not, do you wonder why? Much of this has to do with where surnames came from and their meanings.

Believe it or not, surnames are a newer technology. Before 3,000 years ago, no one even used surnames. Everyone just went by their first name. But as the population grew and people traveled to far-off lands, it became apparent that humanity needed another way to distinguish people from one another.

This change first happened in China, which had the largest population for thousands of years. The government asked citizens to take their father's first name in order to track who was paying taxes. This continued for generations and is still in practice today.

Europeans didn't adopt last names until the Middle Ages, when longer life expectancy and growing cities meant there were too many people to track by first name alone. As Europeans began to colonize the globe, the practice spread, until today almost everyone on earth has a last name.

Where do surnames come from?

There are four main evolutions of surnames: patronymic, locative, occupational, and nicknames. Last names have become more complicated over time, which can make it hard to pinpoint the exact origin of a given name.

Patronymic surnames

These are typically the easiest surnames to decode. They usually end in either "son" or "dottir". Johnson indicates that the individual was originally "the son of John." This type of surnaming was very common in England and the Nordic countries, which is why it's so common in America.

Locative last names

Back in the Middle Ages, many people were given names of places. Every child of John couldn't be a Johnson, so people used locations to specify the person. This led to last names like Lake, York, and Marsh. "David of the Lake" became simply "David Lake".

Occupational last names

In cities like London, which had about 200,000 people by the year 1600, people took to adopting the surname of their profession. Smith has been the most common last name in the US for decades. Other occupational names include Knight, Prince, Baker, Farmer, and Tanner.

Nickname last names

If no locative or occupational last name was available, people were given nicknames. Common nicknames of the time were "Jolly" or "Little". Although the nickname back then may have preceded the name, they eventually came to follow the first name, leaving surnames like Little and Jolly.

How American surnames are different

Tracing a surname in America is different than tracing it in Europe. One reason is the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Enslaved people had their names taken from them and were given new last names, often after their owners or physical characteristics. This is where surnames like White and Black come from, as well as names of ownership like Jacobs.

Many Indigenous Americans never had surnames; they had multi-part first names. Sometimes, US officials would take part of these first names and turn them into last names, which is how a surname like Birdsong can arise from a phrase meaning "makes a song like a bird."

Immigration also changed American surnames. Immigration officials at Ellis Island often misspelled or Americanized the foreign names they recorded, which is why there are so many variants of the same surname in the US today.