Taken from this very nformative site Behind The Name

... A family name (also called surname or last name) is a name that is passed from one generation to the next. In many cultures a woman adopts her husband's family name when they are married

In Europe, surnames began to be used in the 12th century, but it took several centuries before the majority of Europeans had one.

The primary purpose of the surname was to further distinguish people from one another. In the 13th century about a third of the male population had a given name of William, Richard or John *.
To uniquely identify them, people began referring to different Williams as William the son of Andrew (leading to Anderson), William the cook (leading to Cook), William from the brook (leading to Brooks), William the brown-haired (leading to Brown), and so on. Eventually these surnames became inherited, being passed from parents to children.

Broadly, most surnames fall into four categories.

?Surnames derived from given names include Johnson, Williams, and Thompson. Most often they are patronymic, referring to a male ancestor, but occasionally they are matronymic.

? Occupational surnames refer to the occupation of the bearer. Examples include Smith, Clark, and Wright.

? Locational or topographic surnames are derived from the place that the bearer lived. Examples include Hill, Woods, and Ford. See place names.

? Surnames derived from nicknames include White, Young, and Long

There are (as at Nov 2910) 6398 surnames at the site

The site has a list of Surnames by Origin
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A large searchable database of nanes

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the Most Common Names (searchable by country)

The oldest use of family names or surnames is unclear.
Surnames have arisen in cultures with large, concentrated populations where single, personal names for individuals became insufficient to identify them clearly. Many cultures use additional descriptive terms in identifying individuals. These terms may indicate personal attributes, location of origin, occupation, parentage, patronage, adoption, or clan affiliation. These descriptors often developed into fixed clan identifications which in turn became family names as we know them today.

In China, according to legend, family names started 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. For scientific documentation that matrilineal surnames existed in China before the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) and that "by the time of the Shang Dynasty they (Chinese surnames) had become patrilineal", see Matrilineality's China section.

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.

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.


Spelling of names in past centuries is often assumed to be a deliberate choice by a family, but due to very low literacy rates, many families could not provide the spelling of their surname, and so the scribe, clerk, minister, or official would write down the name on the basis of how it was spoken, or how they heard it. This results in a great many variations, some of which occurred when families moved to another country (e.g. Wagner becoming Wagoner, or Whaley becoming Wheally). With the increase in bureaucracy, officially-recorded spellings tended to become the standard for a given family

In Britain, hereditary surnames were adopted in the 13th and 14th centuries, initially by the aristocracy but eventually by everyone. By 1400, most English and Scottish people had acquired surnames, but many Scottish and Welsh people did not adopt surnames until the 17th century, or even later. Henry VIII (1491?1547) ordered that marital births be recorded under the surname of the father.

... Most surnames of British origin fall into seven types:

* Occupations e.g. Archer, Bailey, Baker, Brewer, Butcher, Carter, Chandler, Clark, Collier, Cooper, Cook, Carpenter, Dyer, Faulkner, Fisher, Fletcher, Fowler, Fuller, Glover, Hayward, Hawkins, Head, Hunt or Hunter, Judge, Knight, Miller, Mason, Page, Palmer, Parker, Porter, Sawyer, Slater, Smith, Taylor, Thatcher, Turner, Shoemaker, Walker, Weaver, Wood or Woodman and Wright (or variations such as Cartwright and Wainwright)

* Personal characteristics e.g., Short, Brown, Black, Whitehead, Young, Long, White

* Geographical features e.g., Bridge, Camp, Hill, Bush, Lake, Lee, Wood, Holmes, Forest, Underwood, Hall, Brooks, Fields, Stone, Morley, Moore, Perry

* Place names e.g., Washington, Everingham, Burton, London, Leighton, Hamilton, Sutton, Flint, Laughton

* Estate For those descended from land-owners, the name of their holdings, manor or estate

* Patronymics, matronymics or ancestral, often from a person's given name. e.g., from male name: Richardson, Stephenson, Jones (Welsh for John), Williams, Jackson, Wilson, Thompson, Benson, Johnson, Harris, Evans, Simpson, Willis, Fox, Davies, Reynolds, Adams, Dawson, Lewis, Rogers, Murphy, Nicholson, Robinson, Powell, Ferguson, Davis, Edwards, Hudson, Roberts, Harrison, Watson, or female names Molson (from Moll for Mary), Madison (from Maud), Emmott (from Emma), Marriott (from Mary) or from a clan name (for those of Scottish origin, e.g., MacDonald, Forbes, Henderson, Armstrong, Grant, Cameron, Stewart, Douglas, Crawford, Campbell, Hunter) with "Mac" Scottish Gaelic for son

* Patronal from patronage (Hickman meaning Hick's man, where Hick is a pet form of the name Richard) or strong ties of religion Kilpatrick (follower of Patrick) or Kilbride (follower of Bridget). (Kil may come from the Gaelic word 'Cill' which means Church. This would certainly support the claim that the surname is tied to the religion.)

In the Middle Ages, when a man from a lower-status family married an only daughter from a higher-status family, he would often take the wife's family name. In the 18th and 19th centuries in Britain, bequests were sometimes made contingent upon a man's changing (or hyphenating) his name, so that the name of the testator continued. It is rare but not unknown for an English-speaking man to take the name of his wife, whether for personal reasons or as a matter of tradition (such as among Canadian aboriginal groups, especially the matrilineal Haida and Gitxsan)

Many people choose to change their name when they marry, while others do not. There are many reasons why people maintain their surname. One is that dropped surnames disappear throughout generations, while the adopted surname survives. Another reason is that if a person's surname is well known due to their particular family's history, he or she may choose to keep his or her birth surname. Yet another is the identity crisis people may experience when giving up their surname. People in academia, for example, who have previously published articles in academic journals under their birth name often do not change their surname after marriage, in order to ensure that they continue to receive credit for their past and future work. This practice is also common among physicians, attorneys, and other professionals, as well as celebrities for whom continuity is important. Though the practice of women maintaining their surname after marriage is increasing, it has not caught on in the general population and there is great peer pressure for women to change their names

There is a great deal more on this wiki site FAMILY NAME