How do last names work in your language and culture?

Here in the Philippines, we have acquired most of our Last Names from Spanish. Our mother's maiden last name becomes our middle name. 

Most last names in Brazil are European (even among people who clearly have no european origin), and it depends on the region the prevalence of Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, etc. We also have many Japanese last names. Indigenous people use the name of their "nation" as last name, but I believe it to be a new trend. It's always the father's name in the end and the mother's in the middle, but it's not mandatory, I only have my father's family name, for example.

july.lullalove wrote:

Here in the Philippines, we have acquired most of our Last Names from Spanish. Our mother's maiden last name becomes our middle name.

That is interesting with the maiden name becoming the middle name... In the UK we are named pretty freely, but the last name usually comes from your father not your mother (who takes your fathers surname when they marry anyway)

The native names in the UK go back to professions of the family and they borrow from germanic norse and french words

Butcher, Smith/Smyth, Carter, Wainwright...etc

In Spain they get one apellido from each parent the maternal from the mother and the paternal from the father

I learned recently from a Spanish friend that the suffix ez... means son/daughter of... so Martinez would have been son of Martin and Rodriguez... was once from son of Rodrigo etc. In English we also have surnames of this type as well with the suffix son... EG: Davison (son of David) Ericson (son of Eric)

In isiZulu there are praise names attached to last names. So basically every amaZulu person has certain praise names that are connected to their ancestry for every surname. If you know an amaZulu person's praise name for their surname they'd be very impressed with you. 

Jade.Xuereb wrote:

july.lullalove wrote:

Here in the Philippines, we have acquired most of our Last Names from Spanish. Our mother's maiden last name becomes our middle name.

That is interesting with the maiden name becoming the middle name... In the UK we are named pretty freely, but the last name usually comes from your father not your mother (who takes your fathers surname when they marry anyway)
The native names in the UK go back to professions of the family and they borrow from germanic norse and french words
Butcher, Smith/Smyth, Carter, Wainwright...etc
In Spain they get one apellido from each parent the maternal from the mother and the paternal from the father
I learned recently from a Spanish friend that the suffix ez... means son/daughter of... so Martinez would have been son of Martin and Rodriguez... was once from son of Rodrigo etc. In English we also have surnames of this type as well with the suffix son... EG: Davison (son of David) Ericson (son of Eric)

This is awesome. I appreciate my appellido even more - SIAREZ. 

Luke.Liebenberg wrote:

In isiZulu there are praise names attached to last names. So basically every amaZulu person has certain praise names that are connected to their ancestry for every surname. If you know an amaZulu person's praise name for their surname they'd be very impressed with you.

That needs a lot of research then. Interesting. I can imagine how challenging it would be for a person to identify those certain praise names for every amaZulu person. 

Luke.Liebenberg wrote:

In isiZulu there are praise names attached to last names. So basically every amaZulu person has certain praise names that are connected to their ancestry for every surname. If you know an amaZulu person's praise name for their surname they'd be very impressed with you.

I'm curious for examples of those praise names!

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This is awesome. I appreciate my appellido even more - SIAREZ.
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I actually think our names are related at the root... my name Xuereb comes from Suarez, which I am almost certain Siarez is relative to as well :) small world

I actually think our names are related at the root... my name Xuereb comes from Suarez, which I am almost certain Siarez is relative to as well :) small world
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I agree. I have used a genealogical app before and it says that some Juarez, Suarez and Siarez family names are mostly found in Mexico and Argentina. :)