Why Do We Have Last Names?
People didn’t always have last names, and they were referred to simply by their given names. Last names originated when people needed to be referred to more specifically than simply by their first names.
Sometimes people were specified by listing the town one lived in after their name, such as “William of Elmwood”. Sometimes locations developed into last names this way. However, as populations grew, there might have been five or ten different Williams in a single town, but only one who was “John’s son”, so he’d be called, “William, John’s son”. Thereby, the last name Johnson was born. These names are known as patronymic, which means “named for the father”.
We also see a lot of occupational names like Miller, Smith, and Taylor. Many of these last names have roots in Old English because of time and place where family names developed.
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