Familiennamen
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History of SurnamesThe chinese seem to have been the first civilization to use surnames to honor and keep track of ther forbearers. In their scheme of doing things, the family name was placed first, intstead of last. Therefore, the family nam of sun yat-sen is sun. The chinese seem to have been a wise race of people, and surnames that describe a person by their relatives ar only one of the several categories of surnames. Our modern system of names originated with the romans. They had an elaborate three name system - which came slowly apart at the seams along with their empire. By the fifth century ad. there was hardly a middle oder last name to be found. During the dark ages (after the fall of Rome) most europeans where known first only by their given name, and later, sometimes by their given name prefixed by their place of birth. The dark ages was a cruel an inhuman time of european human existence. The dawning of the eleventh century brought a new and much more compley level of cultural, social and economic conditions to europe. The population expandes as the beginnigs of a commercial lifestyle began replacing the isolated way of life of the country village. This development started forcing people out of villages. Moving them into towns and citiey. As communication became more efficient, the use of a single name became a problem, causing increasing confusion. As a solution, the hereditary surname came into use. The idea seems to have origniated in Venice, an helps to complete the circle of the roman influence on our present-day name structure. Surnames come in severeal categories, or from various places of origin. 1. from occupations (see under occupational names) 2. from places (see under geographic names) 3. from nicknames 4. from convenience 5. from father (fathers name) ...from Nicknames When Surnames were being slowly adopted, many came about as the result of nicknames that were previously giben by friends, relatives or other people. Some of the nicknames were not too flattering. To say the least ... most of those habe vanished ober the years, being changed by descendants through spelling changes, or simply by changing names after emigrating. Physical features that were prominent were also pressed into service as an identifier. Names such as long, short, beardsly and stout, were descriptions of the bearers. Other examples are, Gay, Moody, Sterne an Wise. Sometimes the name would tell its own story, as in lackland, freeholder or goodpasture. At the other times they might have been chosen to generate envy or sympathy, as in rich, poor or armstrong. ...from convenience or need Some names were simply picked up when a person without a surname suddenly needed one, for exampel, a lady in waiting for some member of royalty might have no traditional surname, but would suddenly need one if her employment came to a sudden end for some reason, such as the member of royalty dying. In times of political trouble an change, a defeated ruler or member of th upper crust would need a much smaller staff, therefore long tim servants would suddenly find themselves without a job, out in the cold with the rest of the commoners, and in need of a surname. Names were sometimes invented as combinations of other words. ... from the fathers name Names that identify the father are called patronymic surnames. Only on rare occasions would the name of the mother have contributed to the surname. The practice of identifying the mothers surname is referred to as being of "matronymic" origin. The norman-french used the prefix "Fitz" to mean "child of", as in Fritzpatrick, for child of patrick. The scandinavians added "son" to identify John´s Son or Erik´s son.
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