they used to be honorifics denoting things like profession.

then we slowly adopted the practice of taking the name of your father

from notherners...

and then we ended up with a weird combination of the two.

i still have a professional surname

in china, you just take your family name. thats it.

You know about Arabic Surnames?

it's been anglicized

but i still have my family's traditional german surname

several names that dont even sound like professions are still professions.

fletcher. smith. cobbler. mason.

how many habsburgs are alive today

My last name is a profession. 😎

Just doxxed myself.

Fugg

xd

Archer, Baker, Butcher, Carter, Clark, Cooper, Cook, Dyer, Faulkner, Fisher, Fuller, Gardener, Glover, Hunter, Page, Parker, Potter, Sawyer, Slater, Taylor, Thatcher, Turner, Weaver, Wright

I could have looked that up for myself if I cared

a lot of names that dont even sound like professions in old english still are- some have shifted in spelling because no one knew how to fucking spell their name right.

hell, shakespeare had like ten spellings for his name

and he couldnt fucking pick one.

although thats victorian times

but still.

My friend's name is different from most spelling because his great granddad was drunk when he wrote his birth certificate when he immigrated from Ireland

In the future descendents of child drag queens will have names like Glittersparkle and L'Whore.

L'hore seems like it would already exist

It does.

I like my surname but everyone spells it wrong

they always put an E in it

How do you put an E in Bismarck

My *Real* name

It's very popular in Birmingham, apparently

I mean the American one

Is your real name not Otto von Bismarck?

No

I would've said North Dakota if that were the case

lol

Are you trolling me right now

?

You're not the real Otto von Bismarck?