What is the story behind this?
In: Other
So some answers are as mentioned before, patriarchy and inheritance and all that. And those are reasons. But another reason is that people would belong to households. And everyone in that household would share that name. These names would give you an identity in the social order of Europe. It started with large household names, and then smaller household also started to add their own names because they didn’t want to just be known as some distant house. That’s why in central europe and france you had this surname thing.
However, other cultures had less to do with these kinds of traditions hence the lack of surnames in places. For example, in nordic countries there weren’t surnames but rather father’s name. Thor Odinson literally meaning Thor son of Odin. Similarly, Arabic and Jewish names also forgo family names and show a relation. Example, Muhammad **Ibn Battuta** which just means Muhammad son of Batuta
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