surnames

     A thousand years ago, most people didn't have what we think of as surnames or family names today. People didn't travel much, so a surname wasn't really necessary to identify a person--or to differentiate one person from another. The ancient people had used a person's father's name (patronymic) as second name--( like Johnson, Peterson, Stevenson) but this changed with each generation, so it wasn't a permanent surname.
     The name of the place a person was from would do as a sort of description, if necessary.  "John of the manor", for example, or "Peter of the lake". Occasional names were descriptive, such as "Eric the Red", or "Notker the Stammerer". Some people were named after their trades (jobs)-- millers, smiths, coopers.
     Eventually all of these forms of surnames became permanent family names--each child born to the family is given the same surname, no matter what the original meaning.  So now we have "Smiths" who aren't blacksmiths, "Coopers" who don't make barrels, and "Wrights" who don't make anything. We have people named "Johnson" whose father's name wasn't "John", and people named "Stevenson" whose father's name wasn't "Steven".