By someones last name how do you tell their background or heritage?

Question

Well I am not so great at knowing someones background. I think its neat and I want to get better at it. Like for Italian last names it ends in an i,o, or e I believe. For Irish they have some of the Mc and O' things. If someone could list them all for me or at least the basic ones it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

And if someone's name is Smith, what would you assume?

You can't tell a person's background by their last name, especially in America.

Mine surname is Norwegian, but I am also Swedish, English, Scots-Irish, Scottish and French Canadian.  

My children are also Irish, German and Italian-by-way-of-Spain.

Answer 2

Every time I answer a "Surname Origin?" question, I think of the joke:

Man sees a sign, "Olaf Olafson, Chinese Restaurant". He goes in, orders a plate of chow mein, asks the Chinese gentleman behind the counter who is Olaf. Chinese gentleman says, "Me! There I was at Ellis Island. The man in front of me was a Swede, six foot four, broad shoulders, red beard. They ask him 'Name?' he says 'Olaf Olafson', in a voice that makes the pens rattle in their holders. Off he goes to seek his fortune. They ask me 'Name?', I say 'Sam Ting', and here I am."

[Sam Ting = Same Thing]

Answer 3

The last name sometimes tells you who they are decendents of, Like in Johnson, "son of John" This can be applied to almost any last name that ends with son. Richardson, Jackson, Abramson, Jefferson, etc...  In Spanish and Italian, the name is plural of an individual name. Like in Martinez "The Martins" exept over centuries, it turned into a "z" instead of the "s" And since John in other languages Juan and Ivan and Jean and Ian and Giovanni and others, John is english, so Johnson is British.I hope I helped.

Answer 4

Surnames are mostly important in helping to identify people.  Other than that they really aren't all that important in genealogy.

Most people in Europe did not have a surname until the last melennium.  In England, most people had one by the end of the 14th century.

They were based on a)being the son of someone b)their occupation c)where they lived d) some characteristic about them.

When they got through it wasn't impossible for legitimate sons of the same man to have different surnames still they could have each shared their surnames with others with whom they were not related.

In Irish names, Mac(Mc), Fitz means son of.

O means descendant of.  

In the Netherlands, people as a rule did not get a surname until the reign of Napoleon.  The funny Dutch thought it would be something temporary and in a spirit of amusement gave themselves obnoxious and disgusting names.  I understand they didn't have an easy time getting them changed once they realized they would be permanent.

Answer 5

You can't always identify people by their name. Why? Because a lot of women and some men change their names when they marry. So if a Caucasian woman with the last name of O'Mallory marries a Yang, that doesn't mean she's Chinese. This is exactly why I think everyone should keep their own names when they marry. That way no one loses their identity. Kids should get both parents' names to acknowledge both heritages.

Answer 6

A surname isn't the way to go about identifying somebody's heritage.

My surname is Hispanic, and yet I am half English.

Answer 7

Those internet things aren't always right. I looked up cornett which is my grandmas family and it said they were english but one of my uncles traced the name back to scotland

Answer 8

Some people, because of situations in history, personal or national, change their surnames, so you can't really go by that.

My great-great-great grandfather changed his surname from Chen to our current surname presumably when he got off the boat from China. A lot of other immigrants did the same thing for one reason or another. I have a friend whose surname was also supposed to be Chen, but her grandfather had it changed to Guzman when the Spanish were discriminating against the Chinese in Manila just to avoid discrimination.

There are even "compound" Chinese names which have been assimilated into Filipino, but even these have meanings: those with a suffix '-co' are reputably descended from one man, the reason they have different surnames is to one branch (or family) from the other.

Filipinos pre-Spanish times didn't use surnames - they identified each other by what they did or a certain characteristic (much like in other places). When the Spanish colonized the Philippines, they decided to give everyone last names since they were having a hard time keeping track of who belonged to what family.