re: The origin of certain last names is fascinating

Mountbatten was instrumental in getting the Brits nuclear sub technology, as he was pretty tight with Hymen Rickover.

I remember back in 11th grade American history our teacher was explaining how last names originally derived from a person's profession.

So a baker would be Baker, a blacksmith was called Smith. A stone mason was Mason...etc.

I asked my friend Laqentrick (who went by his last name instead of Laqentrick) "Hey Cotten, what do you think your family did?"



He, along with the rest of the class, laughed his arse off. Said " That was funny
frick you, but that's funny."

Teacher did send me to the principal, who laughed too.
I miss the 90's when people didn't get upset about unimportant shite like jokes.

I’ve met someone with the last name “Wanker” before and wondered who did his ancestor piss off to get that last name when they were sent to the states

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You probably weren't paying much attention to F1 racing.

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I imagine he may have considered himself a Lemans driver because his season behind the wheel of the JPS Lotus was abysmal. He won Le Mans overall once, but the rest of his Lemans career was as unlucky as his F1 career. Useless trivia fact: he once drove a car with Chip Ganassi, which was Chip's only Le Mans. 2nd useless fact, his co-driver during his year at Lotus was some hack from Brazil named Aryton. Trying to remember how Aryton did in F1, I seem to remember he did OK at McLaren, not so well at Williams.

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I remember back in 11th grade American history our teacher was explaining how last names originally derived from a person's profession.

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English surnames generally derived from four elements: a person's profession (such as Wheelwright, Fisher, Farmer), father's name (Johnson, Jameson), appearance or association (White, Black, Green, Redd), or place of origin (Hill, Dale, Wood, Middle"ton" = "town").

Knew a hot young coed whose last name was Honeycutt, which we of course altered by changing one of the t's to an n.

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Tidbit: guys who built/fixed roofs were called Warwickers This evolved into the last name Warwick.

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Pretty good R&B soul singers too.

At least in England (and probably most of Europe), the names come from one of several origins:

1) Your trade:

Smith
Baker
Shoemaker
Brewer
Cook
Butcher
Carpenter
Mason
Weaver

2) Your city, county, province of origin -

John from York becomes John York

Most names with the postfix "ton" mean "town." For instance, Harrington means a guy from "stony town."

3) Nicknames:

Armstrong - a dude with strong arms
Whitehead - a guy with blonde or whitish hair.
Black - a man with a darker complexion than average
Blue - a family with blue eyes
Brown - could be anything
Good - means a good dude (literally).
Short - means a short dude
Darling - means what it says, someone's darling
Fairchild - a nickname which means "beautiful child."

Many other examples.

4) Sons of a certain man:

Anderson
Johnson
Peterson
Williamson
etc..


5) Geographical nicknames:

Caldwell (lives near cold well)
Dallas (valley house)
Meadows (lived in the meadow)
Greenwood (lives near a lush/green forest area)
Oakley (lived near an oak clearing)
Hathaway (a man who lived near a heath path).
Hepburn (high burial mound)
Holmes (lives near a holly tree)
Overton (upper settlement or riverbank)
Perry (a guy who lived near a pear orchard)
Poole (lived near a small body of water)
Underwood (lives at edge of woods)
Westbrook (lived near a western brook or stream)
Winfield (meadow, pasture, field)
Witherspoon (a person who dwelt near a sheep farm).

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Dickinson...but I'm not sure I really wanna know that ones origin.

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It’s Dickin’s son

Just like Fjükmydottir is the Icelandic daughter of Fjükmy.