What's in a Name?
Surnames
The science of surnames can become entangled in a welter of technical terms and a mire of family history. Yet, behind all the nomenclature of names lie a few essential naming classifications which hide a wealth of social history, and a mass of ancestral wordplay where nicknames, place names, first names and job titles were all hijacked for use as family names.
Get started on the technicalities of the naming game and try to work out the roots of your family name:
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