General Information The Basics History of Last Names
| History of Last Names |
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The oldest use of family or surnames is unclear. Surnames have arisen in cultures with large, concentrated populations where single names for individuals became insufficient to identify them clearly. In many cultures, the practice of using additional descriptive terms in identifying individuals has arisen. These identifying terms or descriptors may indicate personal attributes, location of origin, occupation, parentage, patronage, adoption, or clan affiliation. Often these descriptors developed into fixed clan identifications which became family names in the sense that we know them today.  In China, according to legend, family names originated with Emperor Fu Xi in 2852 BC. His administration standardised the naming system in order to facilitate census-taking, and the use of census information. The surnames "Zhu," "Lee," "Chung" and "Chang" are most popular in Taiwan, and/or China. In Japan, family names were uncommon except among the aristocracy until the 19th century.In Ancient Greece, during some periods, it became common to use one's place of origin as a part of a person's official identification. At other times, clan names and patronymics ("son of") were also common. For example, Alexander the Great was known by the clan name Heracles and was, therefore, Heracleides (as a supposed descendant of Heracles) and by the dynastic name Karanos/Caranus, which referred to the founder of the dynasty to which he belonged. In none of these cases, though, were these names considered formal parts of the person's name, nor were they explicitly inherited in the manner which is common in many cultures today. They did, however, survive with a vengeance as clan names as 'Greeks' or 'Hellenes' or 'Minoans', as opposed to the toponymic 'The Sea Peoples' used by the Egyptians, or 'Ionians', which is one of the names still used for the Greeks today by Arab-speaking people as 'Younanis'. In the Roman Empire, the bestowal and use of clan and family names waxed and waned with changes in the various subcultures of the realm. At the outset, they were not strictly inherited in the way that family names are inherited in many cultures today. Eventually, though, family names began to be used in a manner similar to most modern European societies. With the gradual influence of Greek/Christian culture throughout the Empire, the use of formal family names declined. By the time of the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, family names were uncommon in the Eastern Roman (i.e. Byzantine) Empire. In Western Europe where Germanic culture dominated the aristocracy, family names were almost non-existent. They would not significantly reappear again in Eastern Roman society until the 10th century, apparently influenced by the familial affiliations of the Armenian military aristocracy. The practice of using family names spread through the Eastern Roman Empire and gradually into Western Europe although it was not until the modern era that family names came to be explicitly inherited in the way that they are today. In the case of England, the most accepted theory of the origin of family names is to attribute their introduction to the Normans and the Domesday Book of 1086. As such, documents indicate that surnames were first adopted among the feudal nobility and gentry, and only slowly spread to the other parts of society. Some of the early Norman nobility arriving in England during the Norman Conquest differentiated themselves by affixing 'de' (of) in front of the name of their village in France. This is what is known as a territorial surname, a consequence of feudal landownership. In medieval times in France, those distinguishing themselves by this manner indicated lordship, or ownership, of their village. But some early Norman nobles in England chose to drop the French derivations and simply call themselves after the name of their new English holdings. During the modern era, many cultures around the world adopted the practice of using family names, particularly for administrative reasons, especially during the imperialistic age of European expansion and particularly from the 17th to 19th centuries onward. Notable examples include the Netherlands (1811), Japan (1870s), Thailand (1920), and Turkey (1934). Nonetheless, their use is not universal: Icelanders, Tibetans, Burmese, and Javanese do not use family names.
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