Origin of family / surnames

#9

Indians who took Anglicised surnames during the colonial period seem to have adopted the names of professions. Some of their best cricketers from the not-to-distant past stand as examples (Farokh Engineer and Nari Contractor are just 2).

Modern professional names might be a little hard on the ear. Gary Telemarketer, Tom Untrustworthypolitician or Peter Publicrelationsbullshitartist don't really roll off the tounge.

As an aside, I went to school with a guy whoes family name was Urine. I've often wondered how you'd end up with a name like that.

My German family name is Schwer, meaning heavy, hard or difficult, but a brother who researched the name found it was originally Schwerin, a town in northern Germany. A lot of English surnames also come from the name of towns or cities.

I've never heard . . . Mechanic

The Morris A. Mechanic Theatre is a playhouse at 1 North Charles Street that is part of the Charles Center of Baltimore, Maryland. The theatre was built by and named for owner Morris A. Mechanic who operated a number of theatres in the city.

I was trying to track down the surname of Urine (which appears to be a variant of Uren) and turned up the names Fuller, Tucker, and Walker.

All of these come from the occupation of fulling. "Fulling or tucking or walking ("waulking" in Scotland) is a step in woolen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of cloth (particularly wool) to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, and making it thicker. The worker who does the job is a fuller, tucker, or walker...Originally, fulling was carried out by pounding the woolen cloth with the fuller's feet, or hands, or a club."

The connection with Urine is that, at one time, urine was often used in the process. "Stale urine, known as "wash," was a source of ammonium salts and assisted in cleansing and whitening the cloth." So "Walker" and "urine" kept coming up together.

As for the Urines, Urens, Uriens, et al, the origin is Cornish. I found several possible origins or meanings, none of them having to do with either occupation or bodily functions.

Edited by: nutraxfornerves to note that the quotes are from th eFont of all Knowledge

Wow, thanks for the interesting replies, everyone. I wonder where do Chinese family names originally come from.

Mostly from China.

More specifically, origin of Chinese surnames.

Patel is the third most common name in London, brought to the UK my indian migrants. English tourists to India sometimes expect to find lots of Patels there, and to their surprise, meet no Patels at all.

The reason is that india is not homogeneous. There are plenty of Patels in Gujarat province, which is a major source of migrants but is far from India's major tourist attractions.

From wiki:

As many as 60% of mid-sized motels and hotel properties, all over the US, are owned by the people of Indian origin. Of this nearly one-third have the surname Patel.

"Patel" means "village headman".

Here in northern California, Singh is probably the equivalent. We have a lot of Sikhs, mostly of Punjabi origin. Sikhs traditionally use Singh as a middle or surname. They are stereotypically taxi drivers, as well as motel & convenience store owners. Actually, a lot are farmers (a high percentage of fruit tree growers are Sikh) and IT workers.