What does your last name mean?

going with my maiden name here:

Last Name: anderson
Scottish and northern English: very common patronymic from the personal name Ander(s), a northern Middle English form of Andrew. See also Andreas. The frequency of the surname in Scotland is attributable, at least in part, to the fact that St. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, so the personal name has long enjoyed great popularity there. The surname was brought independently to North America by many different bearers and was particularly common among 18th-century Scotch-Irish settlers in PA and VA.

very intersesting!

Originally Posted by mferr84

going with my maiden name here:

Last Name: anderson
Scottish and northern English: very common patronymic from the personal name Ander(s), a northern Middle English form of Andrew. See also Andreas. The frequency of the surname in Scotland is attributable, at least in part, to the fact that St. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, so the personal name has long enjoyed great popularity there. The surname was brought independently to North America by many different bearers and was particularly common among 18th-century Scotch-Irish settlers in PA and VA.

very intersesting!

Click to expand...

I was sure it meant "the best bat company ever"

The site conjectures that my name is a derivation of Wouters, which it describes as:

1. Dutch and North German (Lower Rhine): patronymic from the Germannic personal name Waldhar (or other forms such as Walthari, Waldheri, Waltherus, Wolterus, Walterus, Woutra) meaning ‘mighty armyâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji] (see Walter).

Sounds reasonable enough, since I've always been told it's German, even though my family name can be traced back over 300 years in the US. Time to get back on Ancestry.com and see if I can get further back. . .

My maiden name...Sutherland:

Scottish: regional name from the former county of this name, so named from Old Norse suðr ‘southâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji] + land ‘landâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji] because the territory lay south of Scandinavia and the Norse colonies in the Orkney and Shetland Islands.

Cool:

Irish: reduced form of Oâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]Reilly, an Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Raghailligh ‘descendant of Raghailleachâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji], Old Irish Roghallach, of unexplained origin.

Although it's actually spelled Riley:

1. Irish: variant spelling of Reilly.
2. English: habitational name from Ryley in Lancashire, so named from Old English ryge ‘ryeâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji] + lēah ‘woodâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji], ‘clearingâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]. There is a Riley with the same meaning in Devon, but it does not seem to have contributed to the surname, which is more common in northern England.

I've always assumed Irish. My sister is the one doing the genealogical research, she'd know better.

German: from a short form of any of various Germanic personal names composed with hard ‘strongâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji], ‘hardyâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji].

I couldn't find my name on that site. But some searching found that it is derived from the name of a son of an Irish king in the 900's and means "noble" or "gentle".

Here's mine!

Scottish: habitational name from Irving in Dumfries and Galloway region, which has the same origin as Irvine, with which it has become inextricably confused.

My maiden name -

Southern French: topographic name from an Occitan equivalent of voisinage ‘communal holdingsâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji], perhaps, or a literal ‘neighborâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji].


My married name -

Southern Italian and Portuguese: According to classical legend, this was the name of the mother of the twins Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome. It was a very popular personal name among Christians throughout Europe, having been borne by the mother of Pope Gregory the Great, a saint in her own right.

here is mine

Southern Italian (Sicily): habitational name from a place named Butera, in Caltanisetta, Sicily.

Last Name: Lopez
Spanish (López): patronymic from the medieval personal name Lope (from Latin lupus ‘wolfâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]). This is one of the commonest of all Spanish surnames.

McDougall-Scottish-Son of Dougall, the black stranger, the foreigner, or Native of the Lowlands.
"To Conquer or Die!!"

Bjurstrom...sweetish from sweden...I guess in 1890 is when Bjurstrom was name as a last name after a forest up there...my dad was born in canada and his father came from sweden in 1903 when he was 3 years old.....my grandfather name was Oscar Bjurstrom

Hey you guys!!!!!!!!! Be careful! Maybe I'm overreacting, but its just because I care about you!!!
Some of you have supplied a dangerous amount of info about yourselves. Its not just what you said in this thread. Its a combination. Even people who are not members have access to these threads, right? Your full name and town are enough for a stranger to find you.
I'm not trying to scare anyone. Just be careful, please!

Ya I know what you mean...and Bjurstroms are not really common where I live but I think they would have a really hard time to find me.......


but thankyou for caring so much......

my last name is Fralish which was Froelich when my ancestors came over from germany and its meaning is "to frolic" lol Guess thats why i love to play so much That site also says

1. German (Fröhlich) and Jewish (Ashkenazic): nickname for a person with a cheerful temperament, from German fröhlich ‘happyâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji], ‘cheerfulâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji] (a derivative of froh ‘happyâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji], Middle High German frō).