Surnames of Welsh origin

In some cultures, a surname, family name, or last name is the portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family, tribe or community.

Practices vary by culture. The family name may be placed at either the start of a person's full name, as the forename, or at the end; the number of surnames given to an individual also varies. As the surname indicates genetic inheritance, all members of a family unit may have identical surnames or there may be variations; for example, a woman might marry and have a child, but later remarry and have another child by a different father, and as such both children could have different surnames. It is common to see two or more words in a surname, such as in compound surnames. Compound surnames can be composed of separate names, such as in traditional Spanish culture, they can be hyphenated together, or may contain prefixes.

Using names has been documented in even the oldest historical records. Examples of surnames are documented in the 11th century by the barons in England. English surnames began as a way of identifying a certain aspect of that individual, such as by trade, father's name, location of birth, or physical features, and were not necessarily inherited. By 1400 most English families, and those from Lowland Scotland, had adopted the use of hereditary surnames.

Definition of a surname

In the Anglophonic world, a surname is commonly referred to as the last name because it is usually placed at the end of a person's full name, after any given name. In many parts of Asia and in some parts of Europe and Africa, the family name is placed before a person's given name. In most Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking countries, two surnames are commonly used or, in some families, three or even more, often because of family claims to nobility.

Surnames have not always existed and are still not universal in some cultures. The tradition has arisen separately in different cultures around the world. In Europe, the concept of surnames became popular in the Roman Empire and expanded throughout the Mediterranean and Western Europe as a result. During the Middle Ages, that practice died out as Germanic, Persian and other influences took hold. During the late Middle Ages surnames gradually re-emerged, first in the form of bynames, which typically indicated an individual's occupation or area of residence, and gradually evolving into modern surnames. In China, surnames have been the norm since at least the 2nd century BC.

A family name is typically a part of a person's personal name and, according to law or custom, is passed or given to children from at least one of their parents' family names. The use of family names is common in most cultures around the world, but each culture has its own rules as to how the names are formed, passed, and used. However, the style of having both a family name (surname) and a given name (forename) is far from universal (see §History below). In many cultures, it is common for people to have one name or mononym, with some cultures not using family names. In most Slavic countries and in Greece, Lithuania and Latvia, for example, there are different family name forms for male and female members of the family. Issues of family name arise especially on the passing of a name to a newborn child, the adoption of a common family name on marriage, the renunciation of a family name, and the changing of a family name.

Surname laws vary around the world. Traditionally in many European countries for the past few hundred years, it was the custom or the law for a woman, upon marriage, to use her husband's surname and for any children born to bear the father's surname. If a child's paternity was not known, or if the putative father denied paternity, the newborn child would have the surname of the mother. That is still the custom or law in many countries. The surname for children of married parents is usually inherited from the father.Kelly, 99 W Va L Rev at 10; see id. at 10 n 25 (The custom of taking the father's surname assumes that the child is born to parents in a "state-sanctioned marriage". The custom is different for children born to unmarried parents.). Cited i
Doherty v. Wizner, Oregon Court of Appeals
(2005) In recent years, there has been a trend towards equality of treatment in relation to family names, with women being not automatically required, expected or, in some places, even forbidden, to take the husband's surname on marriage, with the children not automatically being given the father's surname. In this article, both family name and surname mean the patrilineal surname, which is handed down from or inherited from the father, unless it is explicitly stated otherwise. Thus, the term "maternal surname" means the ''patrilineal'' surname that one's mother inherited from either or both of her parents. For a discussion of ''matrilineal'' ('mother-line') surnames, passing from mothers to daughters, see matrilineal surname.

The study of proper names (in family names, personal names, or places) is called onomastics. A one-name study is a collection of vital and other biographical data about all persons worldwide sharing a particular surname.

History

Origins

While the use of given names to identify individuals is attested in the oldest historical records, the advent of surnames is relatively recent. ''Note: content available by subscription only. The first page of content is available vi
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'. Many cultures have used and continue to use additional descriptive terms in identifying individuals. These terms may indicate personal attributes, location of origin, occupation, parentage, patronage, adoption, or clan affiliation. These descriptors often developed into fixed clan identifications that in turn became family names as we know them today.

In China, according to legend, family names started with Emperor Fu Xi in 2000 BCE. His administration standardised the naming system in order to facilitate census-taking, and the use of census information. Originally, Chinese surnames were derived matrilineally,linguistics.berkeley.edu (2004). http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/~rosemary/55-2004-names.pdf, "Naming practices". A PDF file with a section on "Chinese naming practices (Mak et al., 2003)". Archived at WebCite on 1Apr11. although by the time of the Shang dynasty (1600 to 1046 BCE) they had become patrilineal. (The first few sentences are accessible online via JSTOR at https://www.jstor.org/stable/2743616, i.e., p.753.) Chinese women do not change their names upon marriage. They can be referred to either by their full birth names or by their husband's surname plus the word for wife. In the past, women's given names were often not publicly known, and women were referred in official documents by their family name plus the character "Shi" and when married by their husband's surname, their birth surname, and the character "Shi".

In the Middle East surnames have been and are still of great importance. An early form of tribal nisbas is attested among Amorite and Aramean tribes in the early Bronze and Iron ages as early as 1800 BCE.

In ancient Iran, surnames were used, but it is likely that most of them belonged to the aristocracy, nobility and military leaders. Among the most famous historical houses were the Achaemenids, the Arsacids, and the Sasanians. These nobilities would have been recognised by their seals, coats of arms and banners; Shahnameh or the Book of Kings, provides a good source of information about them.

In the early Islamic period (640–900 CE) and the Arab world, the use of patronymics is well attested. The famous scholar Rhazes () is referred to as "al-Razi" (lit. the one from Ray) due to his origins from the city of Ray, Iran. In the Levant, surnames were in use as early as the High Middle Ages and it was common for people to derive their surname from a distant ancestor, and historically the surname would be often preceded with 'ibn' or 'son of'. Arab family names often denote either one's tribe, profession, a famous ancestor, or the place of origin; but they weren't universal. For example, Hunayn ibn Ishaq (fl. 850 CE) was known by the nisbah "al-'Ibadi", a federation of Arab Christian tribes that lived in Mesopotamia prior to the advent of Islam. Hamdan ibn al-Ash'ath (fl. 874 CE), the founder of Qarmatian Isma'ilism, was surnamed "Qarmat", an Aramaic word which probably meant "red-eyed" or "Short-legged".

In Ancient Greece, as far back as the Archaic Period clan names and patronymics ("son of") were also common, as in Aristides as Λῡσῐμᾰ́χου – a genitive singular form meaning son of Lysimachus. For example, Alexander the Great was known as ''Heracleides'', as a supposed descendant of Heracles, and by the dynastic name ''Karanos''/''Caranus'', which referred to the founder of the dynasty to which he belonged. These patronymics are already attested for many characters in the works of Homer. At other times formal identification commonly included the place of origin. In none of these cases, though, were these names considered essential parts of the person's name, nor were they explicitly inherited in the manner that is common in many cultures today.

Over the course of the Roman Republic and the later Empire, naming conventions went through multiple changes. (''See Roman naming conventions.'') The ''nomen'', the name of the gens (tribe) inherited patrilineally, is thought to have already been in use by 650 BCE.Benet Salway, "What's in a Name? A Survey of Roman Onomastic Practice from c. 700 B.C. to A.D. 700", in ''Journal of Roman Studies'', vol. 84, pp. 124–145 (1994). The ''nomen'' was to identify group kinship, while the ''praenomen'' (forename; plural ''praenomina'') was used to distinguish individuals within the group. Female ''praenomina'' were less common, as women had reduced public influence, and were commonly known by the feminine form of the ''nomen'' alone. Some women were distinguished from relatives later on by the use of ''major''/''minor'', or by an ordinal number. Even for men, there were only a few commonly used ''praenomina'', with some falling out of use and very few new names gaining popularity. During the Republic, 99% of Roman citizens shared only 17 ''praenomina''. Furthermore, eldest sons were frequently given the same ''praenomen'' as their father. This led to confusion between members of the same ''gens''. Therefore, from the 5th to the 2nd centuries BCE the use of ''cognomina'' arose, beginning in noble patrician families. These were originally personal names, frequently physical features. For example, the ''cognomen'' of Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō meant "nose". Before too long, ''cognomina'' were again inherited and ceased to be personal distinguishers. In the later centuries of the Empire, there was a proliferation of ''agnomina'', a fourth name placed after the ''cognomen''.

Medieval Era and beyond

Later with the gradual influence of Greek and Christian culture throughout the Empire, Christian religious names were sometimes put in front of traditional ''cognomina'', but eventually people reverted to single names. By the time of the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, family names were uncommon in the Eastern Roman Empire. In Western Europe, where Germanic culture dominated the aristocracy, family names were almost non-existent. They would not significantly reappear again in Eastern Roman society until the 10th century, apparently influenced by the familial affiliations of the Armenian military aristocracy. The practice of using family names spread through the Eastern Roman Empire and gradually into Western Europe, although it was not until the modern era that family names came to be explicitly inherited as they are today.

Medieval Spain used a patronymic system. For example, Álvaro, a son of Rodrigo, would be named Álvaro Rodríguez. His son, Juan, would not be named Juan Rodríguez, but Juan Álvarez. Over time, many of these patronymics became family names, and they are some of the most common names in the Spanish-speaking world today. Other sources of surnames are personal appearance or habit, e.g. Delgado ("thin") and Moreno ("dark"); geographic location or ethnicity, e.g. Alemán ("German"); and occupations, e.g. Molinero ("miller"), Zapatero ("shoe-maker") and Guerrero ("warrior"), although occupational names are much more often found in a shortened form referring to the trade itself, e.g. Molina ("mill"), Guerra ("war"), or Zapata (archaic form of ''zapato'', "shoe").

In England, the introduction of family names is generally attributed to the preparation of the Domesday Book in 1086, following the Norman conquest. Evidence indicates that surnames were first adopted among the feudal nobility and gentry, and slowly spread to other parts of society. Some of the early Norman nobility who arrived in England during the Norman conquest differentiated themselves by affixing 'de' (of) before the name of their village in France. This is what is known as a territorial surname, a consequence of feudal landownership. By the 14th century, most English and most Scottish people used surnames and in Wales following unification under Henry VIII in 1536.

A four-year study led by the University of the West of England, which concluded in 2016, analysed sources dating from the 11th to the 19th century to explain the origins of the surnames in the British Isles. The study found that over 90% of the 45,602 surnames in the dictionary are native to Britain and Ireland, with the most common in the UK being Smith, Jones, Williams, Brown, Taylor, Davies, and Wilson. The findings have been published in the ''Oxford English Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland'', with project leader Professor Richard Coates calling the study "more detailed and accurate" than those before. He elaborated on the origins: "Some surnames have origins that are occupational – obvious examples are Smith and Baker. Other names can be linked to a place, for example, Hill or Green, which relates to a village green. Surnames that are 'patronymic' are those which originally enshrined the father's name – such as Jackson, or Jenkinson. There are also names where the origin describes the original bearer such as Brown, Short, or Thin – though Short may in fact be an ironic 'nickname' surname for a tall person."

Modern era

During the modern era, many cultures around the world adopted family names, particularly for administrative reasons, especially during the age of European expansion and particularly since 1600. Notable examples include the Netherlands (1795–1811), Japan (1870s), Thailand (1920), and Turkey (1934). The structure of the Japanese name was formalized by the government as ''family name'' + ''given name'' in 1868. Nonetheless, the use of surnames is not universal: Icelanders, Burmese, Javanese, and many people groups in East Africa do not use family names.

Family names sometimes change or are replaced by non-family-name surnames under political pressure to avoid persecution. Examples are the cases with Chinese Indonesians and Chinese Thais after migration there during the 20th century or the Jews who fled to different European countries to avoid persecution from the Nazis during World War II. Other ethnic groups have been forced to change or adapt surnames to conform with the cultural norms of the dominant culture, such as in the case of slaves and indigenous people of the Americas.

Family name discrimination against women

King Henry VIII of England (reigned 1509–1547) ordered that marital births be recorded under the surname of the father. In England and cultures derived from there, there has long been a tradition for a woman to change her surname upon marriage from her birth name to her husband's family name. (See Maiden and married names.)

In the Middle Ages, when a man from a lower-status family married an only daughter from a higher-status family, he would often adopt the wife's family name. In the 18th and 19th centuries in Britain, bequests were sometimes made contingent upon a man's changing (or hyphenating) his family name, so that the name of the testator continued.

The United States followed the naming customs and practices of English common law and traditions until recent times. The first known instance in the United States of a woman insisting on the use of her birth name was that of Lucy Stone in 1855, and there has been a general increase in the rate of women using their birth name. Beginning in the latter half of the 20th century, traditional naming practices (writes one commentator) were recognized as "com nginto conflict with current sensitivities about children's and women's rights". Those changes accelerated a shift away from the interests of the parents to a focus on the best interests of the child. The law in this area continues to evolve today mainly in the context of paternity and custody actions.

Naming conventions in the US have gone through periods of flux, however, and the 1990s saw a decline in the percentage of name retention among women. As of 2006, more than 80% of American women adopted the husband's family name after marriage.

It is rare but not unknown for an English-speaking man to take his wife's family name, whether for personal reasons or as a matter of tradition (such as among matrilineal Canadian aboriginal groups, such as the Haida and Gitxsan). Upon marriage to a woman, men in the United States can change their surnames to that of their wives, or adopt a combination of both names with the federal government, through the Social Security Administration. Men may face difficulty doing so on the state level in some states.

It is exceedingly rare but does occur in the United States, where a married couple may choose an entirely new last name by going through a legal change of name. As an alternative, both spouses may adopt a double-barrelled name. For instance, when John Smith and Mary Jones marry each other, they may become known as "John Smith-Jones" and "Mary Smith-Jones". A spouse may also opt to use their birth name as a middle name, and e.g. become known as "Mary Jones Smith". An additional option, although rarely practiced, is the adoption of the last name derived from a blend of the prior names, such as "Simones", which also requires a legal name change. Some couples keep their own last names but give their children hyphenated or combined surnames.

In 1979, the United Nations adopted the '' Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women'' ("CEDAW"), which declared in effect that women and men, and specifically wife and husband, shall have the same rights to choose a "family name", as well as a profession and an occupation.

In some places, civil rights lawsuits or constitutional amendments changed the law so that men could also easily change their married names (e.g., in British Columbia and California). Québec law permits neither spouse to change surnames.

In France, until 1 January 2005, children were required by law to take the surname of their father. Article 311-21 of the French Civil code now permits parents to give their children the family name of either their father, mother, or hyphenation of both – although no more than two names can be hyphenated. In cases of disagreement, both names are used in alphabetical order. This brought France into line with a 1978 declaration by the Council of Europe requiring member governments to take measures to adopt equality of rights in the transmission of family names, a measure that was echoed by the United Nations in 1979.

Similar measures were adopted by West Germany (1976), Sweden (1982), Denmark (1983), Finland (1985) and Spain (1999). The European Community has been active in eliminating gender discrimination. Several cases concerning discrimination in family names have reached the courts. ''Burghartz v. Switzerland'' challenged the lack of an option for husbands to add the wife's surname to his surname, which they had chosen as the family name when this option was available for women. ''Losonci Rose and Rose v. Switzerland'' challenged a prohibition on foreign men married to Swiss women keeping their surname if this option was provided in their national law, an option available to women. ''Ünal Tekeli v. Turkey'' challenged prohibitions on women using their surname as the family name, an option only available to men. The Court found all these laws to be in violation of the convention.

From 1945 to 2021 in the Czech Republic women by law had to use family names with the ending -ová after the name of their father or husband (so-called ''přechýlení''). This was seen as discriminatory by a part of the public. Since 1 January 2022, Czech women can decide for themselves whether they want to use the feminine or neutral form of their family name.

Patronymic surnames

These are the oldest and most common type of surname. They may be a first name such as "Wilhelm", a patronymic such as "Andersen", a matronymic such as " Beaton", or a clan name such as " O'Brien". Multiple surnames may be derived from a single given name: e.g. there are thought to be over 90 Italian surnames based on the given name " Giovanni". Hanks, Patrick and Hodges, Flavia. ''A Dictionary of Surnames''. Oxford University Press, 1989. .
Patronymic surnames can be a parent's name without modification (Ali Mohamed is Mohamed's son), preceded by a modifying word/character (bin Abdulaziz, Mac Donald), or modified by affixes (Stefanović, Petrov, Jones, Olsen, López, Price, Dēmētrópoulos, Fitzgerald). There is a wide range of family name affixes with a patronymic function.

Patronymic surnames can be actively changing with each generation (Senai Abraham father of Zerezghi Senai father of Afwerki Zerezghi) or derived from historical patronymics but now consistent between generations (as in Sarah Jones whose father is Benjamin Jones, and all her paternal grandfathers surnamed Jones back 200 years).

Patronymics can represent a single generation (Ali Mohamed is Mohamed's son) or multiple generations (Lemlem Mengesha Abraha is Lemlem son of Mengesha son of Abraha, his son could be Tamrat Lemlem Mengesha).

See Patronymic surname for specifics on cultural differences. See family name affixes for a list of specific prefixes and suffixes with their meanings and associated languages.

Examples

* Patronal from patronage (''Hickman'' meaning Hick's man, where Hick is a pet form of the name Richard) or strong ties of religion ''Kilpatrick'' (follower of Patrick) or ''Kilbride'' (follower of Bridget).
* Patronymics, matronymics or ancestral, often from a person's given name. e.g., from male name: ''Richardson'', '' Stephenson'', ''Jones'' (Welsh for Johnson), '' Williams'', ''Jackson'', '' Wilson'', '' Thompson'', '' Benson'', ''Johnson'', '' Harris'', ''Evans'', ''Simpson'', '' Willis'', ''Fox'', '' Davies'', '' Reynolds'', '' Adams'', '' Dawson'', '' Lewis'', '' Rogers'', '' Murphy'', '' Morrow'', '' Nicholson'', '' Robinson'', '' Powell'', '' Ferguson'', ''Davis'', '' Edwards'', '' Hudson'', '' Roberts'', '' Harrison'', '' Watson'', or female names ''Molson'' (from Moll for Mary), '' Madison'' (from Maud), ''Emmott'' (from Emma), ''Marriott'' (from Mary) or from a clan name (for those of Scottish origin, e.g., '' MacDonald'', ''Forbes'', '' Henderson'', '' Armstrong'', '' Grant'', ''Cameron'', '' Stewart'', ''Douglas'', '' Crawford'', '' Campbell'', ''Hunter'') with "Mac" Gaelic for son.

Occupational surnames

Occupational names include ''Smith'', ''Miller'', '' Farmer'', '' Thatcher'', ''Shepherd'', '' Potter'', and so on, as well as non-English ones, such as the German ''Eisenhauer'' (iron hewer, later Anglicized in America as '' Eisenhower'') or '' Schneider'' (tailor) – or, as in English, '' Schmidt'' (smith). There are also more complicated names based on occupational titles. In England it was common for servants to take a modified version of their employer's occupation or first name as their last name, adding the letter ''s'' to the word, although this formation could also be a patronymic. For instance, the surname ''Vickers'' is thought to have arisen as an occupational name adopted by the servant of a vicar,Reaney, P.H., and Wilson, R.M. ''A Dictionary of English Surnames.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Rev. 3rd ed. . while '' Roberts'' could have been adopted by either the son or the servant of a man named Robert. A subset of occupational names in English are names thought to be derived from the medieval mystery plays. The participants would often play the same roles for life, passing the part down to their oldest sons. Names derived from this may include ''King'', ''Lord'' and ''Virgin''. The original meaning of names based on medieval occupations may no longer be obvious in modern English.

Toponymic surnames

Location (toponymic, habitation) names derive from the inhabited location associated with the person given that name. Such locations can be any type of settlement, such as homesteads, farms, enclosures, villages, hamlets, strongholds, or cottages. One element of a habitation name may describe the type of settlement. Examples of Old English elements are frequently found in the second element of habitational names. The habitative elements in such names can differ in meaning, according to different periods, different locations, or with being used with certain other elements. For example, the Old English element ''tūn'' may have originally meant "enclosure" in one name, but can have meant "farmstead", "village", "manor", or "estate" in other names.

Location names, or habitation names, may be as generic as "Monte" (Portuguese for "mountain"), "Górski" (Polish for "hill"), or "Pitt" (variant of "pit"), but may also refer to specific locations. "Washington", for instance, is thought to mean "the homestead of the family of Wassa",Cottle, Basil. ''Penguin Dictionary of Surnames''. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967. No ISBN. while "Lucci" means "resident of Lucca". Although some surnames, such as "London", "Lisboa", or "Białystok" are derived from large cities, more people reflect the names of smaller communities, as in Ó Creachmhaoil, derived from a village in County Galway. This is thought to be due to the tendency in Europe during the Middle Ages for migration to chiefly be from smaller communities to the cities and the need for new arrivals to choose a defining surname.Bowman, William Dodgson. ''The Story of Surnames''. London, George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1932. No ISBN.

In Portuguese-speaking countries, it is uncommon, but not unprecedented, to find surnames derived from names of countries, such as Portugal, França, Brasil, Holanda. Surnames derived from country names are also found in English, such as "England", "Wales", "Spain".

Many Japanese surnames derive from geographical features; for example, Ishikawa (石川) means "stone river", Yamamoto (山本) means "the base of the mountain", and Inoue (井上) means "above the well".

Arabic names sometimes contain surnames that denote the city of origin. For example, in cases of Saddam Hussein al Tikriti, meaning Saddam Hussein originated from Tikrit, a city in Iraq. This component of the name is called a '' nisbah''.

Examples

* Estate names For those descended from land-owners, the name of their holdings, castle, manor or estate, e.g. Ernle, Windsor, Staunton
* Habitation (place) names e.g., Burton, Flint, Hamilton, London, Laughton, Leighton, Murray, Sutton, Tremblay
* Topographic names (geographical features) e.g., Bridge or Bridges, Brook or Brooks, Bush, Camp, Hill, Lake, Lee or Leigh, Wood, Grove, Holmes, Forest, Underwood, Hall, Field, Stone, Morley, Moore, Perry

Cognominal surnames

This is the broadest class of surnames, encompassing many types of origin. These include names based on appearance such as "Schwartzkopf", "Short", and possibly "Caesar", and names based on temperament and personality such as "Daft", "Gutman", and "Maiden", which, according to a number of sources, was an English nickname meaning "effeminate".

Acquired and ornamental surnames

Ornamental surnames are made up of names, not specific to any attribute (place, parentage, occupation, caste) of the first person to acquire the name, and stem from the middle class's desire for their own hereditary names like the nobles. They were generally acquired later in history and generally when those without surnames needed them. In 1526, King Frederik I of Denmark-Norway ordered that noble families must take up fixed surnames, and many of them took as their name some element of their coat of arms; for example, the Rosenkrantz (“rose wreath”) family took their surname from a wreath of roses comprising the torse of their arms, and the Gyldenstierne (“golden star”) family took theirs from a 7-pointed gold star on their shield. Subsequently, many middle-class Scandinavian families desired names similar to those of the nobles and adopted “ornamental” surnames as well. Most other naming traditions refer to them as "acquired". They might be given to people newly immigrated, conquered, or converted, as well as those with unknown parentage, formerly enslaved, or from parentage without a surname tradition.

Ornamental surnames are more common in communities that adopted (or were forced to adopt) surnames in the 18th and 19th centuries.

They occur commonly in Scandinavia, among Sinti and Roma and Jews in Germany and Austria. Examples include "Steinbach" ("derived from a place called Steinbach"), "Rosenberg" ("rose mountain"), and "Winterstein" (derived from a place called Winterstein). Forced adoption in the 19th century is the source of German, Polish and even Italian ornamental surnames for Latvians such as "Rozentāls (Rosental)" ("rose valley"), "Eizenbaums (Eisenbaum") ("steel wood"), "Freibergs (Freiberg)" ("free mountain").

In some cases, such as Chinese Indonesians and Chinese Thais, certain ethnic groups are subject to political pressure to change their surnames, in which case surnames can lose their family-name meaning. For instance, Indonesian business tycoon Liem Swie Liong (林绍良) "indonesianised" his name to Sudono Salim. In this case, "Liem" (林) was rendered by "Salim", a name of Arabic origin, while "Sudono", a Javanese name with the honorific prefix "su-" (of Sanskrit origin), was supposed to be a rendering of "Swie Liong".

During the era of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade many Africans lost their native names and were forced by their owners to take the owners' surnames and any given name the owner or slave master desired. In the Americas, the family names of many African-Americans have their origins in slavery (''i.e.'' slave name). Many freed slaves either created family names themselves or adopted the name of their former master.

In regions with a strong religious influence, newly acquired names were often given by the religious leaders as part of naming ceremonies. The religion dictated the type of surname but these are traditionally surnames associated with the religion. Islamic names often follow the Arabic patronymic naming conventions but include names like Mohamed or ibn Abihi, "son of his father". Catholic names may have been influenced by the Saint on whose feast day the person was christened, for instance Toussaint and De Los Santos may have been christened on All Saints' Day.

As Native Peoples of the Americas were assimilated by the conquering countries, they were often converted to the dominant religion, being christened with associated names (i.e. de la Cruz). Others maintained a historical name, title, or byname of an ancestor translated into the new language (i.e. RunningWolf). Yet others were simply given "appropriate sounding" invented names (as Markishtum for members of the Makah tribe).

Another category of acquired names is foundlings names. Historically, children born to unwed parents or extremely poor parents would be abandoned in a public place or anonymously placed in a foundling wheel. Such abandoned children might be claimed and named by religious figures, the community leaders, or adoptive parents. Some such children were given surnames that reflected their condition, like (Italian) Esposito, Innocenti, Della Casagrande, Trovato