Chapman brings to mind the use of surnames in India. In almost all parts of India surnames that come after one's given name has become the family name. For instance Upadhyay, Chandal, etc. In India, unlike in the Western civilisation, families that have been practising a certain profession have given them respect or kept them on the fringes of the society. Upadhyay means 'a teacher' while chandal cremates the dead. Upadhyay is a respected profession while chandal was considered an outcast.

Just a comment about your example of Smith as a surname, there were other smiths besides blacksmiths, any metal worker was a smith, coppersmith, tinsmith, silversmith, goldsmith, etc. By the way, contrary to popular opinion, a blacksmith did not just shoe horses, he was the source for all metal products; hinges, hooks, pots, pans, gates, locks, a smith made just about any of the things made of metal that today we would buy in a hardware store.

This subject has always fascinated me. Do you know of any trusted web resources with lots of surnames?

Here's the link to the Google listing for surnames; I can't vouch for any reliability, but will offer two cautions: don't trust Wikipedia unless the article lists a source and you check out that source; and, don't use any site that you have to pay for.
surnames

A friend of mine has a surname that is in no book of names that I know , not even ones that describe "O" , her name is THOYTZ, (West Country, UK)
Perhaps casting the net deep rather than broad might catch a similar fish........

Hi hari, welcome to the board. If you change the Wezt Country burr of a Z to the more normal English S you'll be on track to find a clutch of Thoyts throughout history, such as mentioned on this search.

and many more Hoyts, I'm sure.

welcome, hari, and great to see you again, mav!

Thanks eta

At the time of posting I hadn’t read the circular from Anu – what a great little tool that link to a surname distribution website is! Does that go some way to answering auctoron's question? I see that neither Thoyts nor Hoyts shows up in enough numbers to register there yet.

Meanwhile a bit of whimsy triggered by the same compendium from Anu…

> From: Helen Slade (helensladeATtelus.net)
Subject: Professions and surnames
As a child with the surname Cox, I fended off the constant teasing with a romantic notion that my name derived from Coxswain…


There was a young lady named Cox
Who was teased as a pretty young fox;
On her marriage bed laid
When she married a Slade
She was pleased by far more than his locks!

I ran the six surnames I know in my family and only one was a recognised name by the site I used. Hummph!
I tried the Ancestor.co.uk site, but they want euros. Apparently, there are/were some ancestors somewhere in the UK, since the 1851 census lists 4 people with my surname. The England/Wales birth register lists 3 births between 1984 and 2004. The most interesting thing I can almost see without paying for it is between 1871 and 1891, the census figures for that surname went from 23 to 15. During that time span, my great grandfather and his eight brothers emigrated from the UK to Kentucky.

emigrated from the UK to Kentucky A-HEM: UK is in Kentucky! Go Big Blue! (I'll stand in for Alex, as he is busy with his brand-new, first-born, baby son.) Do you know what part of KY they were in, Connie?

Mom was looking into it. I'll have to ask if she has any info on that. There are quite a few relatives from the other brothers in southeast Indiana.

Has anyone thought about the reason or relevance as to why, a woman's surname becomes that of his husband's after marriage ? We have accepted that as a norm, but has anyone ever questioned why ?

- KD

Used to be a female was either property of her father or of her husband. All children were property of their respective fathers, but little boys outgrew it. There was a time when women even lost their first names, going from, e.g., Miss Colette Wispibrane to Mrs. Maximilian Tuffgigh.

Good site:
I have used the "given" name site as well:

http://www.behindthename.com/

wow !! I never knew the meaning of my name until today !!

Glad to oblige, most of us are here to give info. Some just to criticize, be one of the former, and welcome.