Family names

[tiecollector]

Why are people named after colors? Green, Brown, White, Black but no Orange or Purple?

 

[DunderMifflin]

Originally Posted by tiecollector

Why are people named after colors? Green, Brown, White, Black but no Orange or Purple?

i'm not sure about Purple, but I bet there are a few people with the last name Orange.

 

[globetrotter]

Originally Posted by migo

I know a lot of Indian people's last names are professions.

castes

 

[eg1]

I was under the impression that Fitz carried with it intimations of bastardy in the original Norman usage. Can anybody confirm?

 

[Matt]

about a third of Vietnamese share the family name Nguyen - dates back to a couple of different dynasties over the past thousand years or so.

Its funny watching new expats show up and try to get their tongues around 'that engooyen name' - with 'nyooyen' being the most common mispronunciation.

It is basically pronounced 'win' - the ng is very soft - almost silent, the uy makes a kind of w sound, the en is pretty much as it sounds.

 

[odoreater]

Slavic names that end with: "-ski" "-ov" "-vich" usually also mean "of". The first part of the name is either a first name (so the "of" means "son of") or they are a nickname or trait.

So the last name "Milosevic" means "son of Milos". The last name "Karadzic" means literally "of the black ones". The former (where the "vich" is preceded by a first name) is more common in the countries of the former Yugoslavia.

 

[Connemara]

Originally Posted by eg1

I was under the impression that Fitz carried with it intimations of bastardy in the original Norman usage. Can anybody confirm?

Nah, that's not true. A common myth. Don't ask me why it's common, because I have no clue.

 

[TheIdler]

Fitz was a Norman corrpution of Old French fils, just meaning "son of"...so you have lots of Fitzwilliams and Fitzpatricks and Fitzgeralds. It was used occasionally for a bastard son of nobility, just to give a child some connection to his famous/wealthy father, but the vast majority of these names just meant son of, as tiecollector already pointed out.

 

[dkzzzz]

In Hungary when a woman gets married she is not only takes the last name of her husband but the first name as well.
So married woman would have a name like Hornak Antallne, which means her husband name is Antall Hornak.
So everyone knows who is this woman belongs to.

 

[lakewolf]

Originally Posted by dkzzzz

In Hungary when a woman gets married she is not only takes the last name of her husband but the first name as well.
So married woman would have a name like Hornak Antallne, which means her husband name is Antall Hornak.
So everyone knows who is this woman belongs to.

I like this !

 

[whodini]

Originally Posted by tiecollector

Why are people named after colors? Green, Brown, White, Black but no Orange or Purple?
I knew a woman whose madien name was "Black" while her husband's last name was "White."

 

[LabelKing]

Von is a aristocratic designation, I believe.

For example, Otto von Bismarck.

 

[lakewolf]

Originally Posted by whodini

I knew a woman whose madien name was "Black" while her husband's last name was "White."

So she was bleached by marriage ?

 

[fortune]

Hmm. Well according to my dad, when my ancestors came to America in the late 1800's I think, our last name was Muler (too lazy to put the correct characters), we're German by the way. He also said that they(immigration) changed it to Miller so it would be easier to pronounce.

 

[tiecollector]

Originally Posted by ashtnn

Hmm. Well according to my dad, when my ancestors came to America in the late 1800's I think, our last name was Muler (too lazy to put the correct characters), we're German by the way. He also said that they(immigration) changed it to Miller so it would be easier to pronounce.

Yeah, I remember reading that immigrations officials would just fill out the names however they felt like writing it when people came off the boat. My last name is German also but it has fewer letters now, though hardly anyone pronounces it correctly still.