How Many Family Names Do You Have? Naming Customs and Surname Diversity

[Beowulf]

Mother's family name is one of the most common Irish surnames

Murphy?

[Etelfrido]

My paternal surname is German and rare. I sometimes use my mom's surname to have more anonymity.

My German surname's also rare and in fact it only exists in Brazil, I'm pretty sure everyone here with that surname is related somehow.

Some people of my family have said this specific branch descends from a French guy who went to Germany and that some generations later the family came here, but no one has been able to provide evidences for it so far. What I think happened is that as our family came from West of the Rhine not long after Napoleon's occupation of that area, maybe some people think they came from France. I've also been told some names, surnames and even nicknames were influenced by French because of that period and that French officials would sometimes Frenchify the spelling of German names, and as all documents of my ancestors I've found were from that era or later the surname has had many spelling variations. I can't wait to trace my family to a period before the occupation.

[Incal]

Here, we use both paternal and maternal. In my case, both are spanish.

[Mopi Licinius Crassus]

O'Kitty Kat McGee?

yeah ...it begins with a K aswell

That was a good guess cvolty

[thatoneton]

On my mother's side, the Swedish woman had a patronymic name (-dotter) and married a Swedish man with a nature name from his family's region. On my father's side, they just used the last patronymic name that was used as their "official" new name.

I haven't thought much about it except for it's super annoying building a family tree with a million different Sven Svensson's

Here's some info I found online:

How did patronymic system work in practice?

Was Nils a son of Otto called Nils Otto-dotter or something like this?
Were nicknames used often for people to easily identify them among friends or family?


Edit: I just realized "-dotter" means a daughter

[Etelfrido]

How did patronymic system work in practice?

Was Nils a son of Otto called Nils Otto-dotter or something like this?
Were nicknames used often for people to easily identify them among friends or family?

Hasn't Poland ever had a Patronymic system, at least for middle names? I know some Slavic countries still do and though Poland doesn't, I thought it could had been used.

[thatoneton]

To add to what I already wrote before (and maybe clear it up a bit for someone) in Poland typically it is:

Given name + Surname

i.e. Jan Kowalski (man) - someone can however have two given names making it Jan Adam Kowalski. The second name is however typically only used in official documents and is not known to anyone else then the closest family, unless of course someone likes their second name so much to be using it more often.

With a woman it's typically:

Given name + surname of her husband in addition to which she can keep hers - or rarely like I said before she may be only using her own. For example:

Anna Kowalska or Anna Kowalska-Nowak

plus of course in official documents she may have a second given name so Anna Maria Kowalska which is likewise not used.

[thatoneton]

Hasn't Poland ever had a Patronymic system, at least for middle names? I know some Slavic countries still do and though Poland doesn't, I thought it could had been used.

In older times surnames were not used except for nobility so for commoners it was typically:

Given name + "of" (z) place name + possibly someone's occupation

Jan z Wólki, piekarz - Jan of Wólka, baker

[nittionia]

How did patronymic system work in practice?

Was Nils a son of Otto called Nils Otto-dotter or something like this?
Were nicknames used often for people to easily identify them among friends or family?

Yeah you just took the dad's first name and add sson or dotter (Gustaf's children use Gustafsson/Gustafsdotter, Håkan's children use Håkansson/Håkansdotter), etc.). Some aren't as straightforward, but that is generally how it worked.
Apparently "farm names" were used to distinguish between people:

To disambiguate between several people with the same name in a community or parish, additional descriptions, usually the name of a farm, such as (Anders Larsson vid Dammen, 'Swedish Anders Larsson by the damm) could be used colloquially. These were not always recorded in church records.

In the region of Dalecarlia these farm names (Swedish: gårdsnamn) are often unique and put first in the name in genitive form, e.g. Ollas Anders Eriksson (Anders from Olla, son of Erik). As patronyms were replaced by surnames, these either became surnames proper (at the end) or continued to be used in the traditional way in combination with a new surname. This tradition is now recognised in law and the farm name appears before the given names in official records.

[rothaer]

One common family name that goes unchanged for centuries.