Do surnames have meanings?
Yes they do. In England, surnames were not widely used before the 14th century, when the introduction of a universal “poll tax” necessitated the keeping of accurate records of the population, for the purposes of collecting the tax. Several methods of creating surnames were used, such as using the father’s name (eg “John Benson” = John, son of Ben (where Ben was John’s father’s name) – another method was to use the person’s occupation as the surname eg Fletcher (an arrowmaker (also Arrowsmith), Cooper (a barrel maker), Smith (a metal worker), Wainwright (a cartwheel maker) etc. Previously, a common method was to use the person’s place of birth or place of residence as a surname (eg John of Leicester).
