I wonder how many surnames there are that are the same as country names?
The last name Canada derives from the Middle English "cane", a development of the Old French "cane", meaning cane, reed. Secondly, it may be a Norman locational name from the town of Caen, in Calvados, Normandy, named with the Gaulish elements "catu", battle, plus "magos" meaning field, plain.
The last name Ireland actually refers to "of Irish origins" and was an ethnic name for an immigrant from Ireland.
The last name France was an ethnic name for someone from France. The Surname DB says that the country was named from the Franks - the free men, a confederacy of German tribes.
The last name Cuba? Portuguese, Asturian-Leonese, Galician, and Spanish: habitational name from any of the places in Portugal (in the provinces of Alentejo and Beira Baixa) or Spain (in Aragon, Asturies, and Galicia) named Cuba, from cuba 'barrel' (from Latin cupa). Variant spelling of Kuba.
The last name America? This is not a happy retrieval - the retrievals want to list the common surnames in America. The Surname DB has no entry at all. But ancestry.com has an answer:
You can see how America families moved over time by selecting different census years. The America family name was found in the USA, the UK, and Canada between 1840 and 1920. The most America families were found in the USA in 1880. In 1840 there was 1 America family living in Illinois. This was about 33% of all the recorded America's in the USA. Illinois and 1 other state had the highest population of America families in 1840.
Then to compare with how countries got their names.
Here is yesterday's progress on the multiple exposure technique.
There are people who see things in very funny ways. Here's an example that popped up last week when the bad dog jokes popped up. Perhaps there was a google humour day in the searching and retrieval algorithm.
It makes me wonder about first names and surnames. We think of surnames as coming about in England. They were adopted between the 11th and 16th centuries. The aristocracy started the consistent use of surnames. The Domesday Book in 1086 is the marker for the introduction of family names. That was so they could tax everyone, and know that everyone had been taxed.
But much earlier, the Romans had personal and family naming conventions - both a personal name and regular surname. Well, quite complicated, with the tradition evolving over centuries. But it broke down following the collapse of imperial authority in the west.
Today, we engage in names as a social convention and personality statement. Websites have recommendations for turning surnames into first names. A great example is Beyoncé: "The singer's full name is Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter. Her mother, Tina Knowles, chose the name because of her own French maiden name, Beyince." I put that in quotes, because I wonder if her mother had spelling issues.
Johnny Depp? This is more traditional: Depp is a surname of South German origin, from a nickname for a 'maladroit' person, or according other sources a comedian. Ellen Page's surname is traditional - status name for a young servant, Middle English and Old French.
And 50 cent? This is the personality statement name: Curtis James Jackson III adopted the nickname "50 Cent" as a metaphor for change. The name was inspired by Kelvin Martin, a 1980s Brooklyn robber known as "50 Cent"; Jackson chose it "because it says everything I want it to say. I'm the same kind of person 50 Cent was."
It is a Cumbers and Toltec day - these are from our visit to Colorado in 2017.
