I've been thinkning about this for a long time now and figure it's about time I put it out there. Last week we had a geographical muster, so I hope it is OK to post this here. Not really trivia but maybe interesting. No one posted any question yet today so I guess its open.
Many family surnames derive from trades or jobs. How many can we come up with ? Woodworking related such as Sawyer, Cooper, Carpenter. Lets even branch out into non wood related like Potter, Baker, and the ever common Smith. I can think of more but I'll wait for you to fill in the rest. Have fun !
My favorite is Brewer, but then you need a Miller and before that a Farmer.
It seems that there were two basic schemes for naming in western Civilizations. Those that stated relationships as in Johnson, and those that defined occupations like Smith. Then of course we get Smithson.
Thanks for putting this up. Sounds like fun. At the moment, we have people that put trivia up on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. If anyone is interested in taking on one of the other days, please feel free.
As to the name I come up with, how about Fletcher from someone that fletches arrows.
Fun question. How about Leach for a doctor, Kellogg for a hog butcher. To me the most beautiful and descriptive names come from here. Native Americans received their name from an elder as related to their birth and later in life the person could rename themselves when some event occurred related to them personally -- which is why we get (translated) names like Spotted Wolf, Big Hand, Low Dog, Moon Lake Woman and the like. Even then the surname of the tribe was never part of the name as it was considered to be too sacred for an individual.
I was hoping for a few more, but we have some good ones so far. I'm kind of surprised the spinny folks didn't come up with Turner. And you handtoolers, how about Joiner (Joyner) ? Glaser(Glazier)?