Beaver County News | 1920-08-18 | Page 7 | Origin of Surnames

Origin of Surnames. No one can say with nsy certnlnty when the practice of taking a surname became general. The Greeks, Assyrians, Assyri-ans, Egyptians and other ancient 'copies 'co-pies had no surnames; the later Romans Ro-mans had each one real personal name, to which they sometimes added a clan name or nomen, a family name or cognomen and a nickname or agnomen. agno-men. The personal or Christian name was the only name recognized by early English law, surnames being words of description used to Identify persons of the same name from each other. The Normans had Introduced into England the habit of using surnnmes.'hut this was confined to t ie upper clashes. By degrees even the common people began be-gan to be distinguished by names referring re-ferring to personal characteristics, as Armstrong, rnnk or profession as Smith, father's name as Jackson, etc