All surnames derived from occupations started at certain point of time. Ancestors of Tailor, Smith, Miller, Fletcher, Fisher, Cooper, etc. had different last names at certain time in past. If a change didn't occur these "occupational" names would not exist.
A change in surname is not necessary, just a transition from no surname to surname, which happened relatively recently in many places, or from explicit parentage descriptions ("X son of Y", etc.) to inherited family names.
Maybe. Often when families immigrated to America they tried to pick a spelling that would allow English speakers to pronounce their name close enough to what they were used to that they would understand they were being called. Sometimes the this was a different English word that had nothing to do with the meaning in the original language. (I suspect the same happens with immigrants elsewhere, but I know my family name is based on getting close to the original sound and that happens to be a word that has a different meaning in English)
I don't know if the original word was a occupation back in the old world or not. (the dialect my family spoke is no longer spoken so it would be difficult to research)
> Often when families immigrated to America they tried to pick a spelling that would allow English speakers to pronounce their name close enough to what they were used to that they would understand they were being called. Sometimes the this was a different English word that had nothing to do with the meaning in the original language.
This is also the naming process for some places in the new world like Cuernavaca in Mexico
So it's very likely it is just a normal thing humans tend to do. Except I don't know much European history so I can't tell if those places got it from England
right, I'm just putting a date on it for anyone wondering about when it happened in English. I have no idea when people got last names in those countries. Also they didn't have different last names before they got these names, they just didn't have last names at all.
