The
Vancouver Sun reports that linguistics researchers believe that many common surnames began as insults. For instance, centuries ago a guy might have been nicknamed "John the Bastard," and the insulting epithet would become his last name, adhering to all his descendants (until someone eventually changed it):
there is a whole category of names that are believed to have been given to children abandoned to orphanages - including the French name Jette (meaning "thrown out"), the Italian name Esposito (meaning "exposed") and the English name Parrish (meaning someone who was raised at the expense of the community.) ...
Both the English names Nott and Cave probably described someone who was bald.
A Barrett was a fraud, a Mallory someone unlucky and a Purcell a little pig...
Similarly insulting are the German names Armann (poor man), Scheunpflug (avoids the plow) and Schiller (cross-eyed)...
"Shakespeare is probably an obscene name, originally, for a masturbator," said Hanks.
This research is particularly interesting to me, because it helps to explain the source of my last name, "Boese," which means 'angry' or 'evil' in German. (It's spelled Böse in German.) Centuries ago one of my ancestors must have been a real jerk, and my family has been saddled with the name ever since.
This research also helps explain some of the
"unfortunate last names" I've occasionally posted about.
Comments
As it's been explained to me, when the Christians first came to Italy, the evangelists went to the marketplace where the largest crowds could be found, to preach.
After a while, the only people who hadn't heard them speak were those who lived way out in the countryside who didn't get to the market often (or at all). In other words, the pagans (Pagani is plural for pagan).
Besides, I thought "Lawyer" was the word for fraud.
And then there's my mother's family. O'Mahoney. (Shortened to Mahoney after the first immigrant arrived in America.) The basic history is that old John J. was a servant of the O'Mahoney castle...and took the name b/c that was his place of employment.
Anywho. I do not think I agree that "many" common surnames were insults. After all, CMG - a 'pagan' isn't necessarily an insult, but a simple description. (But I don't know that Pagani is common at all.) I know a family with the surname "Ferrier". That would seem to me as if the family had a history of being, well - ferriers. Ya know - the people that put shoes on horses? What about the name Smith? There are many different professions that are "smith" professions. Black...silver...etc.
And I think the Shakespeare line is just for laughs.
Cicero is derived from cicer "chickpea" probably because of a wart, Plautus means "flatfoot", Brutus means "stupid" etc.
"Anywho. I do not think I agree that "many" common surnames were insults. After all, CMG - a 'pagan' isn't necessarily an insult, but a simple description. (But I don't know that Pagani is common at all.)"
Oh, I agree. No, Pagani didn't derive from an insult so far as I know. It was merely descriptive.
You're right, Pagani is far less common than Pagano, the singular form. When I was growing up, there were only five Paganis in the Bronx phone book and three of them were my family.
Most surnames were originally introduced to distinguish between multiple persons with the same first name in a small community, and therefore coined after commonly known distinguishing features: Peter the Baker and Peter the Farmer, John the Tall one and John the Small one, Paul living on the Hill and Paul living by the River. Some of these features may have been disagreeable and lead to insults, but those were a minority.
The main exception was the forced introduction of last names for jews in the german language region, where many were given deliberately insulting surnames, and in some cases were "allowed" to pay large sums of money to have them altered to more acceptable ones if they could afford it.
So it's possible that rather than insults...again, it was simply descriptive. Or just a way to tell the difference between two common first names like Nadine mentions. If there were two Pauls living on the same hill...you now have to find a way to make them stand apart from each other, since they already stand apart from Paul living by a river.
Scheune means barn