Family Names?!?

What is for you old times? What country do you refer too - last name or family name traditon varies from different ccuntries.
There are countries which had no real family names.

it's just a bunch of patriarchal bullshit, everyone who marries should take the woman's name, after all until now with almost flawless paternal testing, the only sure parent of a child (if the birth was witnessed) was the mother

the whole name=bloodline was a farce from the start, at least the jews got it right

Pride

Yeah, like planting a tree when you know you won't live long enough to see it full grown.

Actually, it really depends on what is meant by "old times" and in which countries.

In some European counties, for instance, the use of a constant family was necessary to enforce one's claims on a fiefdom or land use.

Take for instance my family. In the 13th century, they owned a farm called "Hentlare" - the (male) owner was called Everhard Offensone von Henthlere ["E.O. of Henthlere" = from the place Henthlere]. One of his relatives signed the below shown document from 1286 as one of the witnesses with his name, which was Dithmar von Hinthlere.


From the 15th century onwards, all used "Hinteler" as name, without the "von" but with "Schulte" as prefix, meaning that they were the "officials" in that hamlet 'Hinteler'.
To stay in this position, over the centuries three males had to chance their own family name - because they married a female heir and there were no sons - to 'Hinteler'.
(All that ended in 18th century, when that farm went bankrupt.)

I'm descended from a bunch of O's and Mc's.. I should have said Pride and accounting.

You got it.

In Canada and the US there are thousands of descendants with names french soldiers took, joke names actually - plays on words, like LeFluer, or Larose.. they were taken to protect the family back home if they were taken captive. So instead of Pierre de Burdundy and so on.. he might be referred to as Pierre La Guerre. The names stuck even though they had no real familiar ties.

In Scandinavia there were no real last names. You got the name after your father.
Lars has two sons and two daughters. They might be Anders Larson, Karl Larson and the daughters Maria Lars dotter and Anna Lars dotter.
Ander´s son might be Lars Anderson and Karl´s son Sven Karlson.
To keep allAnderson, Peterson and Larson apart one often added the place name or farm name you came from.
Sven Karlson who was born on the Edby Farm would then be Sven Edby Karlson.
Soldiers had a very short last name often referring to something in nature like Bear, Fish, Birch. Branch,

How does the -strom suffix fit in there?

I grew up in Minnesota and we had a bunch of Larsons and Karlsons and Andersons and the rest. Actually lots were "sens," I had a lot of friends who got mad at me if I spelled that wrong. (Petersen, etc. Swedish?) Lots of -stroms too. (Lindstrom, Edstrom, etc.)

Ström- (Swedish), Strøm- (Danish, Norwegian) "stream"

Söder- (Swedish) "south"

Berg- (German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian) "mountain", "hill"

Right, but does it mean that their farm was near a stream?

Does the rest of the name refer to which stream, if so?

Is it more generic than that? Etc.

I'm no expert but I think it is more generic unless it refers to the town near the stream

Here's some more:

-felt, -feldt (Swedish) "field" (archaic spelling)

-fors (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian) "rapids"

The following is a tad lengthy but underscores the Swedish naming issues about which you're inquiring:

The Names of Our Swedish Ancestors

"The names of our Swedish ancestors, the forebears of Olof Lars Ekberg and Ida Magdalena Almstrom, are difficult and confusing to trace. This is because the family names, Ekberg and Almstrom, are not really very old. In fact, the names were actually created by our ancestors in the late 1800's. Before that time the names did not exist, at least not in our family. It is also very interesting to find that both our family names, Ekberg and Almstrom, were derived from names created by two brothers!

Until about the 1870's or so, Swedes used the "patronymic" system of naming their children (see the article, "Swedish Names," from the Swedish Genealogical Group, Minnesota Genealogical Society). In this confusing system children were named after their father's first name. For example, when our ancestor Ohla (or Ola) Larsson had a son named Lars, the son's name was Lars Olsson, or Lars, the son of Ola. When Ola had a daughter named Hanna, her name became Hanna Olsdotter. This was very confusing because in the absence of family names, in any village, every child named Lars, whose father was named Ola, was named Lars Olsson. Any given village might have several Lars Olssons, all totally unrelated.

And it gets worse. Since there were no family names, women retained their original names after marriage, not assuming the husband's surname. Thus, in our ancestor's family, the father was Ohla Larsson, his wife was Boel Gertsdotter and the children were Lars Olsson and Hanna Olsdotter; four different last names in one family!

But wait! It gets worse still ! All males were required to serve in the military. Because there were so many Lars Olssons, or Anders Martenssons, or whatever, the military gave soldiers names that were supposed to be less confusing. However, that actually, in many cases, added to the confusion, as when our ancestor Ohla Larsson went into the military he chose, or was given, the last name "Nyman," which essentially means "new guy." After he left the military service he kept the Nyman name, so that in searching the records he is initially listed as Ohla Larsson but later became Ola Nyman. However, his children and wife did not assume that name; their names remained the same, at least for a while.

In this short history I will try to explain how Olof's family name went from Olsson to Nyman to Ekberg, and how Ida's family name changed from Martensson to Sand to the Almstrom we know, and will include some documents showing the progression of these name changes."


The Ekberg Name
"The grandfather of Olof Lars Ekberg was the previously mentioned Ohla Larsson, who was the son of Lars Starck. During his military service he assumed the Nyman name and kept it the rest of his life. However, because children were named after the father's first name and not his surname, his son Lars, born in 1843, became Lars Olsson. A few years later, in the 1860's or so, some people began taking family names, as was the custom in most of Europe, so in some records Lars Olsson is listed as Lars Olsson Nyman. But when he went into the military in about 1868 he took, or was given the name Ekberg ("oak mountain") and thereafter he is listed in the records as Lars Olsson Ekberg.The name could possibly have been taken from that of a small town near Skifvarp called Ekeberg, or from a famous marble quarry also with that name. He married a young lady named Anna Larsdotter (who was the daughter of Lars Jeppsson) and they began raising a family.

By this time family names were catching on, and though his wife remained Anna Larsdotter, all his children apparently took the name Ekberg, including our patriarch, Olof. Olof retained that name until he had been in America for a couple of years at which time it was changed to the Eckberg name we have now."

Lindstrom, Lindstrøm, Lindström etc means "lime [linden] stream" - here, someone living near the lime trees at a stream.
Local people would have known, who he was.

'Hentlare' means "behind the field" = the first Hinteler lived behind the plugged fields of the town. (Thus, his plugged fields were called "Hintelerfeld" [Hinteler's field], still the name of a couple of fields there)

The prefix -son is Swedish and the -prefix -sen is Danish and Norwegiean.
You grew up in Minnesota, then you probably k now that there are lots of bad jokes about Norwergieans and Swedes - that one reason they did not want the names confused - I guess.

Oh yes. Many Ole and Lena jokes.

Being Swedish with Norwegian relatives in Midwest I have heard more than enough of them......

I've never had much concern for a family name.
With a father who was adopted, the family name has very little connection to any past of mine. Early on it became clear the family name meant something to the same crazies who are more interested in having a son than having an intelligent, lively, charming daughter.

From the family view, as said, my father R.W.W. was adopted (as is his grandson born 20 years to the day after he passed and with the same initials), so no draw there. My mother was a single child. Her father had 1 brother who also had a single female child. More family name not continuing. It wasn't made a big deal of. My mother's mother had some brothers, I can't say they ever made a big deal over not having sons to carry on a family name.

The other day I read the obituaries and a gentleman had passed over. The last name listed seemed familiar to that of a girl I'd gone to school with. I looked in and it turned out, he'd changed his name. Not by marriage, he just up and changed it. His children would be carrying on the new name- if they so desired. heck, they might follow in his footsteps and change it to yet another name. So we'd go from Tom Hughes--->>became Tom Noble-->>father of Albert, Flora and Dora (twins), George Noble-->>Albert became Alan Baxter and Dora and Flora switched names and became the Bonel twins, George became George Larsen when he married Peggy Larsen. Poor old great great grandpa Theodore Hughes is spinning in his grave as he sees the family name dissolved. (please note that the obituary read is real, the names I gave, are not from that listing)

Bottom line is a name is of as much value and importance as you want it to be.

I think the importance and interest in your last name depends a bit on how interested you are in your family history and/or genealogy.
Hopefully genealogy has nothing to do with snobbism, but just pure interest in what happened in your family.
When you work with genealogy you will find out that there are things coming out which you did not expect.
A lady a generation ahead of me has always told about her grand wedding and where it took place followed by a dinner in a castle.
The story did not really fit as I knew she got married after the mentioned family left the castle.
Then I found letters and other papers and it turned out she had a civil marriage followed by a small dinner at her parent in laws home.
I have kept my big mouth about this - so now you know more than her kids - my cousins