Patronymics

--- In cybalist@..., "João S. Lopes Filho" <jodan99@...> wrote:

> About GARCIA family: Garcia was originally a first name, not

surname. So,

> there's a lot of independent Garcia families, because the name

Garcia was

> used as a patronymic - so, Juan Garcia was the Juan Garcia's son.

The same

> is valid for Gomes/Gomez and Osorio.
> After XVI century the patronymics became gradually surnames. You

have

> analogous examples of patronymics becoming surnames in almost all

European

> languages.
> See yours - "Pedersen" = Peter's son
> And mine "Simoes Lopes" = Simon's son, Lopo's son
>
>
> Joao Simoes Lopes
> Rio,Brazil

All the -sen names (I belive the top one (Nielsen ?) claims 6% of the
population) were fixed in the last half of the 19th century by law.
Before that time they were true patronynmics, cf eg our national
composer Carl Nielsen, son of Niels Jørgensen Maler (house painter).
His youngest siblings, born after that law, had the surname
Jørgensen. If the name was ambiguous, you might add the name of the
farm he was from, giving you names like Søndergård Poulsen, Nørregård
Olsen etc., profession: Maler, Bager, Smed or village: Knabstrup,
Mørkøv. Almost a Russian system!
When I was in the army the old custom of calling each other by
village name (or number) was still used among us privates.

Torsten