A stupid question?

Question:So where did surnames come from.

I mean when did one start using them, in the old old days just have one name. If your surname was Baker was that because that was your occupation and you gave yourself that name?

Did Adam and Eve have a surname...?

How did this all come about....

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: So where did surnames come from.

I mean when did one start using them, in the old old days just have one name. If your surname was Baker was that because that was your occupation and you gave yourself that name?

Did Adam and Eve have a surname...?

How did this all come about....

Adam and Eve did NOT have a surname.

Some parts of the world began using surnames before others, but in general, surnames are a pretty recent thing. Some parts of the world still don't use surnames. Surnames are generally derived from one of four sources: the name of the person's father (patronymic), the person's locality, the person's occupation, or a descriptive nickname for the person.

The patronymic name suggests the name of the father or grandfather by the use of some form of "of." In Ireland, "Mac" means "son of," while "O" means "grandson of." When "d’" or "di" is found in an Italian surname, it signifies "son of." In Czechoslovakia, Pavlov is the "son of Paul." This naming pattern can be seen clearly in Sweden, where each subsequent generation followed suit: Hans Peterson would be the son of Peter; Hans Peterson's son would be called Jan Hansen. (On the female side, the daughter of Hans would be called Hansdotter.) A similar situation can be found in the New World, in naming patterns in Dutch New Amsterdam. Some common patronymics are Robertson, Anderson, Williamson, and Johnson.

Place names were often taken as a surname. They were derived from the name of the place where one resided or from a description of the place. Mokotoff is from the Russian village of Mokotow; the Irish Slattery is originally from Ballyslattery in east County Clare. More than half the English surnames used today derive from geographic descriptions, such as Churchill. Various suffixes which indicate a topographical feature are lee (meadow), bank, don (town), field, house, and thorp (village).

Occupations also helped distinguish one person from another. John Miller may have owned the mill in the same town where John Smith was the local blacksmith. Bedell was the policeman of the village; Fletcher was the arrow-maker. You will often find names which describe ancestors' vocations, such as Baker, Shepherd, Carpenter, and Wright.

Sometimes nicknames became surnames. These types of surnames were often used to describe something unusual about an ancestor's physique. Small and Petit are obvious examples, as is Blackbeard.

If you are interested in finding out a particular country and their surnames, wiki has a pretty good article you might want to take a look at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_name

EDIT: Kelly P... I am not saying that all of the surnames fall into one of four catagories; however, a good many of them do. There are surnames that are totally made up and there are more and more of them created every day. The question asked for the origin and as a basic rule, the majority came from fathers, occupations, places, and description.

I do not know exactly surnames came from. I know that surnames were based on what you do, your occupation.

Like me, My great great grandparents were school teachers or in academ so i guess that made my father's surname Academia..lol..

not so sure though..

Surnames began to be used in England around the time of the Norman invasion - 1066. The Normans needed to write down details of all those who needed to be taxed. Surnames were given so that, for instance, John the miller could be differentiated from John the archer, John the brown haired, John the baker etc.
So the answer to your question "when did one start using them" is:
When people in authority needed to keep track, in writing, of those they wished to control and take money from!
Easy, really, isn't it!

I have read that most sur names came from where you were born and what tribe you were with.

Eric the red, (a vikining) had a son that was called 'eric's son'. hence the last name ericson..

I believe surnames started after the number of people in the world increased. when all of a sudded there were two bakers and you had to distinguish one from the other. So it become baker son of Smith. With time, the son of was dropped and it become Baker smith. I think.

I don't think it's as simple as some of the above are saying. There are many many strange names out there that don't have any relationship to a father's name, occupation or place. I think you have to consider the place where the haves and the have nots meet up and become murky. On the one extreme there would be those with folks with titles and extensive property. Names would have been important to them to keep track of their possessions. Names would be important to their subsequent generations for the same reason.
On the other extreme there would be those who have nothing but their occupation. It makes sense that these people would be called a name according to what they did or lived near.
Then there are the folks who are neither one nor the other. I think that's the largest group. So you would have to start factoring in human desires, imagination, and pretensions.
People making up names for odd reasons.

Every one is concentrating on Europe and actually surnames were in use other parts of the world prior to the European countries. The main reason they came to be it was answered above-when governments needed to track down people or do a census it did no good to have huge numbers of people with the same name. Whether this was thought up or copied from other parts of the world is really hard to say and could be argued but the reason for it is simple as to identify specific people as census became popular and the population grew.

Tracing the origin of surnames is really difficult even though there are some scholars who devote themselves in studying this. But the origin differs from country to country, it can be the tribe name or the name of the elders or being assigned by the auhtority. In the middle eastern countries for example, fathers name becomes the surname, but in fact it is the name of the eldest of the family that was passed on to generations to generation.