Hells bells, no difference than Europe in general. Densmore, Dinsmore, Dinsmuir, Dunsmore. I'd be amazed if the European of us could not find several variations. I suspect we were late to the party.
-- Owen It began in various parts of the world at different times. In England, surnames became generally hereditary during the 13th.and 14th. centuries (1200 and 1300s) They mostly came about from a place of origin, like Wood, Hill, Field, Sheffield or London, an occupation, like Smith, Cook, Baker or Butcher, a personal relationship, William/son, John/son, Thom/son, or with a prefix like Mac, or from a physical characteristic, like Short, Strong, or Redhead. Some may even have taken the name of the lord of the manor they were tied to. Surnames began simply because there were just too many Tom's John's and Williams, it became necessary to have another way to identify people, instead of John the son of William the smith, it gradually became John Smith, the son of William the smith, and although John Smith might have been a farmer, he continued using his father's name, passing it down to his son, and so on. Otherwise it would have been George the cooper, son of John the farmer, son of William the smith, etc.,etc. In addition, the wives names complicated matters to an even greater degree, it was inevitable that a less complicated system had to evolve. On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 6:49 PM, Arlo Barnes <[email protected]> wrote: > Those work. I think I was thinking of something else, but I will probably > just have to run across it in the wild again to remember. > I was going to say but forgot: C de Baca is one of my favorite local > surnames, because it is the only surname I know that has an abbreviation > baked in (for Cabeza, head; the name translates as 'head of the cow', which > I interpret [perhaps wrongly] as 'head of the herd' - a herder or leader. > And due to the [common across languages] B/V association, sometimes it is > spelled Vaca, hinting at common ancestry with German 'Vieh' and Latin > 'pecus'). Another favorite with variant spelling (if only for one > generation) is Haozous/Houser. > -Arlo James Barnes > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >
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