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Bird Surnames

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Sandpiper
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21 Jan 2023, 2:34 am

I have a book about the seashore written by J D and Susan Fish.


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Cornflake
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21 Jan 2023, 8:00 am

naturalplastic wrote:
There was a fictional character on a British show named "Mr. Titmouse". Dont know if its an actual common surname.
Close - Fred Titmus, English cricketer.


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naturalplastic
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21 Jan 2023, 8:51 am

DeepHour wrote:
I've always been quite interested in the origins of surnames in the English-speaking world. There are the obvious 'patronymic' types, reflecting the fact that someone was the offspring of a particular person (Donaldson, McDonald, O'Donnell, etc), and surnames reflecting the town of a family's origin (John Bolton, Tony Blackburn, Billy Preston) and so on....

But why are the names of birds so relatively common? I've encountered or heard of the surnames Sparrow, Swallow, Duck, Raven, Hawk, Goshawk, Swan, Gull, Pigeon, Finch, Eagle, Heron, Partridge, Nightingale, Quail, Rook, Woodcock, Starling, and probably one or two others. There's also the surname 'Bird' itself of course (Harold Bird, famous English cricket umpire).

There is no real parallel in other parts of the animal kingdom. As far as 'fish' surnames go, 'Salmon' is reasonably common, and the First Minister of Scotland is Nicola Sturgeon, but can't think of many more examples. It would be quite surprising to meet a Mr or Mrs Octopus.

A bizarre topic for a thread, you may think, and I'm not anticipating a flood of replies, but am genuinely curious about this phenomenon!

Eagle is NOT really very common, but among Americans of German descent "Adler" IS kinda common (German for eagle). Dont forget Britain's greatest naval hero...Francis Drake. Daw and Dawson are rather common (jackdaws/daws are a bird species in Britain). Starling is common.



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21 Jan 2023, 9:05 am

naturalplastic wrote:
Mountain Goat wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
Mountain Goat wrote:
What bird is a smith?


Like I said above -most English surnames are taken from occupations. Not from animals, avian, or otherwise.

Smith is an occupation.


Where did the "Black" in "Blacksmiths" come in?


Not sure. My guess is that it had something to do with the need to distinguish the guys who made stuff out of iron from "goldsmiths", and "silversmiths".

Since those metals are also names of colors they just went with "black" for the "smiths" of iron and steel products.

Actually it's probably the above, plus the fact that so many finished products made of cast iron or wrought iron are black in color. That black color of your cast iron skillet or fireplace wood holding thing or even horseshoes is from the 'seasoning' they coat it with. They coat the still hot iron thing in oil (linseed oil usually back in the day), or in a mixture of oil and the soot from their forges... to protect the product from rust- making its surface that solid black. So it makes sense that iron guys would be 'black' smiths (as opposed to goldsmiths, and silversmiths)because thats the color of many of their products.



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21 Jan 2023, 2:53 pm

I knew some people named Crane.
Not many bird names in my family tree.


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