Last names are inherited, so how far back did last names go? Did people initially choose their last name and then passed it down to children? Why are there so many common last names between people who aren’t related?
The original question was asked by a 6 year old, and it got me thinking about all of these other questions too.
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In Spanish and Portuguese, surnames also refers to the original city or town (“de La Vega” when refers to location, “Martinez” when refers to an ancestor name), similarly with their English and scandinavian counterparts. In countries with recent slavery history, many african and asian slaves changed their original names and surnames for the owner’s family surname and made their descendants use those since then.
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