Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Genealogy
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 07-17-2012, 04:12 PM
 
Location: Cushing OK
14,539 posts, read 21,166,913 times
Reputation: 16936

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by pvande55 View Post
In Scotland and Wales it was to determine land ownership, after the middle ages. That is why there are so many people with the surname "Lake" "Woods", "Field", or "Hill". And some occupations, like "Baker," "Carpenter," or "Cooper." I believe African Americans, following emancipation, chose their own, and many liked Washington, who freed his slaves on his deathbed.
One of the reasons 'smith' is such a common name. There were dozens of kinds of smiths but they didn't differenchiate when they took it as a name. Anyone with a place name as a last name was likely named as a property owner, John of Kent with the of dropped later.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 06-09-2015, 04:03 AM
 
3 posts, read 2,680 times
Reputation: 15
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801 View Post
The Dutch didn't have surnames until Spain occupied The Netherlands in the 16th century. The Spanish demanded they come up with names to help identify them (and count their property) so the Dutch provided them--often using the name of their town or coming up with ridiculous names that the Spanish didn't realize translated into things like Born Naked.
Hi Mightyqueen801,

I know this post was a few years ago now, but I'm wondering if you have a reference or website about the Dutch making up interesting surnames for the Spanish.

I'm interested because my surname goes back to meaning 'have not'. Which in the context of your comment would really start to make sense!

Thanks for your time,

EngleDutch
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 06-09-2015, 01:15 PM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,042 posts, read 83,879,518 times
Reputation: 114270
Quote:
Originally Posted by engledutch View Post
Hi Mightyqueen801,

I know this post was a few years ago now, but I'm wondering if you have a reference or website about the Dutch making up interesting surnames for the Spanish.

I'm interested because my surname goes back to meaning 'have not'. Which in the context of your comment would really start to make sense!

Thanks for your time,

EngleDutch
My mother gave me a book some years ago called Delightfully Dutch. I read it in there. I don't have the book anymore--lost a bunch of books and pretty much everything else I owned in a house fire in 1997. It had recipes from The Netherlands (many of which sounded pretty disgusting, lol) and history about the Dutch in the U.S.

I love to do Google searches, though, so let me see what I can find...

ETA: Found this right away, which attributes the giving of surnames to Napolean, not the the Spanish.

http://iagenweb.org/marion/WhatsinaDutchName.htm
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 06-09-2015, 01:59 PM
 
Location: Florida
4,103 posts, read 5,393,226 times
Reputation: 10105
OP this is around the time that I can no longer trace my family name as well ~1000 AD in England.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 06-10-2015, 04:11 PM
 
3 posts, read 2,680 times
Reputation: 15
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801 View Post
My mother gave me a book some years ago called Delightfully Dutch. I read it in there. I don't have the book anymore--lost a bunch of books and pretty much everything else I owned in a house fire in 1997. It had recipes from The Netherlands (many of which sounded pretty disgusting, lol) and history about the Dutch in the U.S.

I love to do Google searches, though, so let me see what I can find...

ETA: Found this right away, which attributes the giving of surnames to Napolean, not the the Spanish.

WhatsinaDutchName
Thank you so much for replying so quickly. I've found the book available on Amazon, so I've added it to my wishlist!

I'm sorry to hear about the house fire. I imagine it was devastating.

Thanks for doing the search - that was an interesting read. Napoleon is the most referenced example, but as proper surnames existed before him, I'm keen to know where they came from - I recently found a site that mentioned the English enforcing surnames during the time of their rule.

Best wishes,

Engledutch
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 06-12-2015, 04:29 PM
 
1,150 posts, read 1,097,424 times
Reputation: 1112
Hi Marylee,
I think Heore means HERO in old English, or Anglo-Saxon. Heorston would be a town named after a Hero. ( perhaps a noted warrior)
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 06-12-2015, 04:41 PM
 
Location: I'm around here someplace :)
3,633 posts, read 5,332,093 times
Reputation: 3980
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801 View Post
My mother gave me a book some years ago called Delightfully Dutch. I read it in there. I don't have the book anymore--lost a bunch of books and pretty much everything else I owned in a house fire in 1997. It had recipes from The Netherlands (many of which sounded pretty disgusting, lol) and history about the Dutch in the U.S.

I love to do Google searches, though, so let me see what I can find...

ETA: Found this right away, which attributes the giving of surnames to Napolean, not the the Spanish.

WhatsinaDutchName
Ohhh, I'm adding that to my "books to buy" list! Thanks for mentioning it!!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 06-13-2015, 01:46 PM
 
3 posts, read 2,680 times
Reputation: 15
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tia 914 View Post
Ohhh, I'm adding that to my "books to buy" list! Thanks for mentioning it!!
I also noticed that there was an update to the book called Dutch Touches: Recipes & Traditions.

For anyone interested in Dutch surnames, I found these pages from the Meertens Institute the other day: Alles over familienamen « Naamkunde (links on the right.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 06-13-2015, 07:30 PM
 
Location: I'm around here someplace :)
3,633 posts, read 5,332,093 times
Reputation: 3980
Quote:
Originally Posted by engledutch View Post
I also noticed that there was an update to the book called Dutch Touches: Recipes & Traditions.

For anyone interested in Dutch surnames, I found these pages from the Meertens Institute the other day: Alles over familienamen « Naamkunde (links on the right.
Cool! Thank you!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 06-14-2015, 07:07 AM
 
Location: Rainy Ulster.
264 posts, read 271,106 times
Reputation: 408
I dont know if any of you in the States are aware of the historical novelist Bernard Cornwell, who is best known for his 'Sharpe' series of novels about a soldier fighting in the Napoleonic wars. It was made into a TV series here in the 90s and gave Sean Bean his first big break as Sharpe.
Cornwell was adopted as a child and after gaining some measure of fame for his writing, traced his birth father who was a Canadian WW2 soldier who had the unusual old Northern English surname of Oughtred .
Probably due to its relative rarity, he was able to trace the name all the way back to a 9th century Northumbrian Anglo Saxon warrior from Bamburgh castle called Uhtred, and has written a very good series of novels based on Uhtred called 'The Warrior Chronicles ' which I can happily recommend.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Genealogy
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top