How to Find the Meaning and Origin of Your Surname

How to Find the Meaning and Origin of Your Surname With a few exceptions, hereditary surnames- the last names passed down through the male family lines- didnt exist until about 1000 years ago. While it may be hard to believe in todays world of passports and retinal scans, surnames just werent necessary before that. The world  was much less crowded than it is today, and most folks never ventured more than a few miles from their place of birth.  Every man knew his neighbors, so  first, or given names, were the only designations necessary.  Even kings got by with a single name. During the middle ages, as families got bigger and villages got a bit more crowded, individual names became inadequate to distinguish friends and neighbors from one another. One John might be called John son of William to distinguish him from his neighbor, John the smith, or his friend John of the dale. These secondary names, werent quite yet the surnames as we know them today, however, because they werent passed down from father to son. John, son of William, for example, might have a son known as Robert, the fletcher (arrow maker). Last names that were passed down unchanged from one generation to the next first came into use in Europe about 1000 A.D., beginning in southern areas and gradually spreading northward. In many countries, the use of hereditary surnames began with the nobility who often called themselves after their ancestral seats. Many of the gentry, however, did not adopt surnames until the 14th century, and it was not until about 1500 A.D. that most surnames became inherited and no longer transformed with a change in a persons appearance, job, or place of residence. Surnames, for the most part, drew their meanings from the lives of men in the Middle Ages, and their origins can be divided into four main categories: Patronymic Surnames Patronymics- last names derived from a fathers name- were widely used in forming surnames, especially in the Scandinavian countries. Occasionally, the name of the mother contributed the surname, referred to as a matronymic surname. Such names were formed by adding a prefix or suffix denoting either son of or daughter of. English and Scandinavian names ending in son are patronymic surnames, as are many names prefixed with the Gaelic Mac, the Norman Fitz, the Irish O, and the Welsh ap. Examples: The son of John (Johnson), son of Donald (MacDonald), son of Patrick (Fitzpatrick), son of Brien (OBrien), son of Howell (ap Howell). Place Names or Local Names One of the most common ways to differentiate one man from his neighbor was to describe him in terms of his geographic surroundings or location (similar to describing a friend as the one who lives down the street). Such local names denoted some of the earliest instances of surnames in France, and were quickly introduced into England by the Norman nobility who chose names based on the locations of their ancestral estates. If a person or family migrated from one place to another, they were often identified by the place they came from. If they lived near a stream, cliff, forest, hill, or other geographic feature, this might be used to describe them. Some last names can still be traced back to their exact place of origin, such as a particular city or county, while others have origins lost in obscurity (Atwood lived near a wood, but we dont know which one). Compass directions were another common geographic identification in the Middle Ages (Eastman, Westwood). Most geographic-based surname s are easy to spot, though the evolution of language has made others less obvious, i.e. Dunlop (muddy hill). Examples: Brooks lived along a brook; Churchill lived near a church on a hill; Neville came from Neville-Seine-Maritime, France or Neuville (New Town), a common place name in France; Parris came from- you guessed it- Paris, France. Descriptive Names (Nicknames) Another class of surnames, those derived from a physical or other characteristic of ​the  first bearer, make up an estimated 10% of all surname or family names. These descriptive surnames are thought to have originally evolved as nicknames during the Middle Ages when men created nicknames or pet names for his neighbors and friends based on personality or physical appearance. Thus, Michael the strong became Michael Strong and black-haired Peter became Peter Black. Sources for such nicknames included: an unusual size or shape of the body, bald heads, facial hair, physical deformities, distinctive facial features, skin or hair coloring, and even emotional disposition. Examples: Broadhead, a person with a large head; Baines (bones), a thin man; Goodman, a generous individual; Armstrong, strong in the arm Occupational Names The last class of surnames to develop reflect the occupation or status of the first bearer. These occupational last names, derived from the specialty crafts and trades of the medieval period, are fairly self-explanatory. A Miller was essential for grinding flour from grain, a Wainwright was a wagon builder, and Bishop was in the employ of a Bishop. Different surnames often developed from the same occupation based on the language of the country of origin (Mà ¼ller, for example, is German for Miller). Examples:  Alderman, an official clerk of the court; Taylor, one that makes or repairs garments; Carter, a maker/driver of carts; Outlaw, an outlaw or criminal Despite these basic surname classifications, many last names  or surnames of today seem to defy explanation. The majority of these are probably corruptions of the original surnames- variations that have become disguised almost beyond recognition.  Surname spelling  and pronunciation has evolved over many centuries, often making it hard for current generations to determine the origin and evolution of their surnames. Such  family name derivations, resulting from a variety of factors, tend to confound both genealogists and etymologists. It is fairly common for different branches of the same family to carry different last names, as the majority of English and American surnames have, in their history, appeared in four to more than a dozen variant spellings. Therefore, when researching the origin of your surname, it is important to work your way back through the generations in order to determine the  original family name, as the surname that you carry now may have an entirely different meaning than the surname of your distant ancestor. It is also important to remember that some surnames, though their origins may appear obvious, arent what they seem. Banker, for example, is not an occupational surname, instead meaning dweller on a hillside.

Secrets of Cheating Revealed and Myths Dispelled

Secrets of Cheating Revealed and Myths Dispelled School Cheating: A Cause of Students’ Troubles or Its Consequence? People tend to blame wrongdoers by default, leaving circumstances and motivations aside. Usually, it is a plausible way to evaluate a situation, but sometimes, a second thought is needed, like in case with school cheating. But what is cheating, why does it exist, how does it affect students’ skills and can it be prevented (and should it)? We will try to find answers to these questions in the following article, so read on. What Is Cheating and Why Does It Exist Among Students? Cheating is copying home tasks from other students, from the web or asking for other students’ help while sitting the exams or midterm tests (and other kinds of assessment). Cheating is blamed on the laziness of students and is supposed to mean their total educational failure since they cannot cope with the material and so ‘steal’ it from the others. But cheating has existed probably as long as students and teachers themselves. People with excellent grades and records have poor jobs, and people who dropped from their schools or hardly managed to graduate then build successful careers and create cool things. So it looks like getting good grades or completing all homework individually does not guarantee success and vice versa. So, well, cheating is not an indication of academic failure. It indicates something else. But what? It points to the extreme loads of duties and expectations placed on children and to the total inability of the education system to account for natural capacities and limits children have. It also indicates that inbuilt creativity and smartness of children still exist, and it helps children rig the system that is rigged against them, in the first place. Put in less complicated words, if children are expected to accomplish things that are basically un-accomplishable, they will find the way out. If homework is so big that it is impossible to cope with it for the majority of students, they will find the way to obtain it from smarter and more persistent classmates or will complete parts of work and exchange these parts between themselves, so that everyone gets a complete work. Anyway, in a system where grades mean everything and knowledge and understanding mean nothing, cheating is only one of the logical step kids take to help themselves out. Common Misconceptions About Cheating Cheating is for lazy. No. Time and efforts spent on preparation of cheats are as labor intense as any other intellectual activity. Some may argue that students better be learning with this intensity, but teachers today assess not knowledge but very formal markers of knowledge, and students provide what is required from them. Cheating does nothing to improve knowledge and just brings students undeserved grades. – No. While copying homework or preparing cheats for tests students repeat the material and learn at least basics of stuff that they will not get otherwise. Cheating outwardly harms learning process. – No. It improves it. Students exchange, copy, repeat, go over the stuff, read, select, and in general do things they are supposed to do at school. Cheating makes students stupid. – Big no. Just imagine how much creativity and skills are required to prepare cheats and to use them. It requires self-control, discreetness, resistance to stress, ingenuity and many more traits that are absolutely necessary in our agile and unstable world. So instead of memorizing stuff, they do not understand, students learn skills they will apply anywhere – and be praised as valuable workers. Cheating is unethical. – If assessing formal criteria (like writing all answers to problems in a column) instead of assessing the correctness of answers and creativity of thinking is OK from an ethical viewpoint, then cheating as an adequate solution is ethical as well. Surprising Upsides to Cheating for Children Cheating is training in itself, and even more intense and useful training than writing letters or memorizing poems. To cheat, children, even in elementary school, need to develop and possess the following skills (and can every adult boast of having them all?): concentration attention to details memorizing things heard or seen only once (catching a glimpse in a mate’s handout, for example) caution fast reaction We can bet that every adult would want to develop these traits in themselves and see them develop in their kids. Hence cheating is a very positive booster for these skills – and not only for the classroom. Homework is actually useless and even dangerous for kids Despite the traditional belief into the usefulness of loads of homework, the reasons behind giving it are more of wishful thinking kind than of true science. Indeed, older students can benefit from limited amounts of homework, but not young kids and middle schoolers. Recent experiments on canceling homework altogether show that students in such classes show the same level of academic success and failures as students who perform homework daily. So what’s the sense? Besides, along being mostly useless, unregulated and abundant homework is outwardly harmful to the mental and physical health of kids. Homework harms kids’ health significantly by stealing their sleep and play/rest time. A school day is almost equal to a workday, but after this day kids are expected to work even more, and it is called ‘time management’, not overtime work, like it should be. Children lack sleep, lack exercise and simply relaxation time, they get mental health problems, anxieties, chronic fatigue, eating disorders, all for the sake of turning in an assignment that no one will bother to check. Homework steals time. Kids have their whole day mapped out for them, with no time to be kids or teens, they are treated like adults in regard to responsibilities but dismissed as children when it comes to their wishes and needs. Not very progressive approach. Hometask is also believed to discipline kids, teach them to order, but the world needs creativity today, and structured time filled with boring useless tasks is a killer of creativity. According to Alfie Cohn, a researcher, and many other reliable investigations, the impact of homework on academic success is almost negligible. So why is the practice of homework so persistent? Just because of habit? Homework destroys peace with parents. Teens already have it hard during their transition from childhood to adulthood. Homework is one more stumbling stone that makes kid and parents argue. Parents believe that teachers know what they do when they give that much homework (but it looks like they don’t). So parents make kids do every assignment instead of relaxing, watching TV or socializing. That’s enough to spark a quarrel. Sometimes parents try to help kids do cope with tasks, but parents have long forgotten the school stuff (or did not learn it properly anyway). Besides, they are not teachers and do not have skills and patience to explain and help properly, on a level accessible to a child. So instead of help, new trouble of miscommunication arises. Cheating Is a Symptom of the Problem, Not a Cause So what is the conclusion? Cheating time, everyone? Definitely, no, it is not. Students do need to learn and understand school subjects properly to be able to study in college and then move on to work. But cheating persistently indicates that the education system does not work the way it should, and instead of gaining skills students employ cheating tactics to get high grades that are demanded by parents, teachers and state/federal education bodies. If the system becomes more productive and inspiring, with less stress on failure and more pressure on the joy of discovery and learning something new, then cheating will become a negligent percentage of students’ activities. As of today, it is a bailout gear that helps students stay afloat in the modern schooling system and not lose their mind completely. Need help, and no friend can help you? Let us be your friends and provide you with a completed assignment or paper that will bail you out and bring you positive grades – and maybe some long-needed rest.