OzTennis

Interesting article:

There Are 7 Types of English Surnames — Which One Is Yours? – Ancestry Blog

Summary:

1 Occupational e.g. Carpenter, Farmer ...
2 Personal characteristic e.g. Little, Strong ...
3 English place name e.g. London, Bedford ...
4 Name of estate e.g. Windsor .....
5 Geographic feature e.g. Brook, Wood ....
6 Mother or father, ancestral (clan) e.g. Nicholson, Jackson, McDonald .....
7 Signifying patronage e.g. Hickman (Hick was King Richard)

Genealogy is apparently the 2nd biggest thing on the internet - few admit to the main use.

old.sparkles

Mine would fall into 3 or 4 - there's definitely a few towns will the same name, but also a castle so I guess an estate.

Think my mum and my sis have done so tracing of the family tree - think we also have a connection to the artist John Constable but not sure how strong the connection is.

Mallory

Number 7, a king.

OzTennis

Was Constable under Occupation (a policeman) me wonders?

commonwealth

commonwealth

commonwealth

livinginnyc

Apparently mine originates from Germany but falls under the first category, you learn something every day!

OzTennis

Yep:

http://blazepress.com/2014/06/45-unf...te-names-ever/

There was an Aberdonian optician my wife went to called Frank Seymour.

Dreamy

My maiden name is no 5, my mam's maiden name is 2 or 5 and my married name is 2.

Mr Dreamy's name is 5, 6 and possibly 7. He always was awkward.

My first name and maiden name means 'a waterfall down a steep ravine' - which is accidentally poetic on the part of my parents

moneypenny20

Maiden name is 1, married name is presumably 2 lmao.

GarryP

Mine comes from 1066, the Domesday book, and before that, France. - so 6 I'd guess.

Dreamy

:: ponders on whether to comment on appropriateness::

::decides discretion is the better part of valour::

Anyway, I put your married name into the thing and it's actually originally 5 ish (but you should put it in, and then what it's derived from, and laugh at the aptness of the whole thing )

SillyOldBag

Well it seems I fall under category 1 but I sort of suspected that anyway.

old.sparkles

My surname is not Constable but way back in the family tree there are Constables in part of the tree that relate back to the artist.