The other day I was having an unusual conversation, and I had a question about history... well, you'd think the question would have resolved itself within the conversation, but we were never able to come up with an answer. It's going to take some research to really figure it out. But what I'm wondering is... at what point did we start using last names? I've never read in the Bible or the Book of Mormon about anybody named "Noah Smith" or "Nephi Jones" or anything like that. Now don't try to tell me it was Jesus because I know that Christ was not actually his last name... Jesus was the Christ. I'm just wondering how we can trace it back to figure out when somebody decided they should tack on another name to their given name. I mean I'm aware that names like Johnson and Anderson came from sons of John and probably Andrew, but what about the other last names... like BRILL?! It would be pretty funny to go back and look at names to find Bob Smith, son of Fred Smith, son of Edward Smith, son of Robert Smith, son of... Frank. Hmm, just something to think about...
And wait, where the heck did middle names come from?! I guess at some point somebody couldn't decide which name they liked better, so they gave their kid both names.
About Me
- Paul Brill
- Sandy, UT, United States
- I'm pretty much awesome. That's all you really need to know.
2 comments:
that's a good point, there, Paul Brill. Jesus was actually called Jesus of Nazareth, as you know...those were probably considered last names back then. Then people got really confused because there were like ten Jesus of Nazareths. Could you imagine how many Joseph of Utahs there would be? but then again, there are a lot of Joseph Smiths anyway...
http://bothsidesofthemouth.blogspot.com/2006/10/paul-brill.html
They wish they knew how to quit you...
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