Other than among the aristocracy, most English surnames were introduced around the thirteenth century, principally as a tool of estate management. By this time pretty much the whole country was divided into large feudal estates, a direct legacy of the Norman invasion in 1066 by William the Conqueror, who handed them out to his friends and supporters. A feudal lord controlled all the land on the estate and distributed the agricultural land among the tenant farmers, whose rents kept him and his immediate family in the grand style to which they very soon became accustomed. This was a highly regulated structure, and detailed records were kept - of which many still exist - listing the size and rental parcel of land along with the name of the tenant.

The trouble was that, without surnames, it was almost impossible for the estate officers to keep track of events.

Within a small village, where everybody knew everybody else, it was easy :for the residents to cope with several people having the same name. They knew them as individuals and often by a nickname as well. But the estate managers had huge difficulties. It was often impossible to tell which John or Adam or Mary or Maud was which. Their solution was to differentiate between people with the same name by adding another name - a surname. Soon afterwards these new surnames became hereditary. By the middle of the thirteenth century, tenant farmers were permitted to pass on tenancies to their sons when they died, so it was natural under the circumstances for the surname to become hereditary, just like the tenancy itself. It was this very practical aspect of medieval book-keeping that lay at the origin of most English surnames. From these bureaucratic beginnings, eventually every man was given a surname; on marriage, women took the names of their husbands. Sometimes these surnames were derived from an occupation ­like Carpenter, Smith or Butcher; sometimes they evolved from a nickname, often a descriptive one, such as Redhead or Smallpiece. Other surnames merely added '-son' to the name of the father to form patronymics like Johnson or Adamson. A fourth category of names were derived from a feature of the landscape - Hill, Bush, Wood.

Out of curiosity I began to look for trade names. Do you know people by these names? Mason, Butcher, Carter, Cooper, Tailor, Glover, Cook, Shoemaker, Shepherd, Spicer, Carpenter, Smith, Forester, Woodman, Carver, Turner, Sawyer, Weaver, Barber, Saddler, Archer, Brewer, Cutler, Farmer, Porter.
Then there are the colour names, Black, Blue, Green, White, Pink, Gold, Silver, Brown. Then there are physical description of a person such as short, Long, Tallman, , Can you think of more? Of course we know that many names are variation and came from other languages. Did Lefler come from Loeffler or Lefleur as an example.

The following is from a “must read” to understand DNA – Adam’s Curse by Bryon Sykes. His other book The Seven Daughters of Eve is equally fascinating.

Another story that I heard was that one of the kings of old, I believe it was a King John in the 13^th century needed more money for his wars. How to tax people if he could not identify or record them. If you know of other stories I would like to hear them. Please email them to me

Check this website for the Whiteside/Whytsyd surname. It is an interesting site. PublicProfiler.org contains data for 26 countries in Europe, America, Asia and Oceania. However, it does not contain information for all countries.
You can find PublicProfiler.org at http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames

Webmaster – Bob Whitside
< This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >