Friday, March 19, 2021

The Commonality of a Name

Here's a fun thread about the various European and nearby family names that mean the same thing as Smith.

(Click to view at a larger size.)

The German Schmidt was not a surprise. The ones that were news to me as familiar names, but unfamiliar as meaning Smith, are:

  • Kowalski (a major grocery store chain in the Twin Cities)
  • Ferrari
  • Kovacs (various and similar forms from a few languages, but best known to me for Ernie)
  • Haddad
  • McGowan 
  • Herrero (from Spain), assuming it also covers Herrera. Isn't that the more common version?

Seppanen, Lefebvre, and Goff are names I've heard occasionally. Gove — the name of a very short street in Saint Paul — appears to be the Welsh version.

A few of the comments in the thread pointed out that Fassbender is a version of the German name for Cooper. And, of course, Muller and Mueller are Miller. I wonder what those are in these other languages.

One commenter added that the surnames Black and White referred to blacksmiths and tinsmiths, respectively, which was also news to me.


No comments: