Bird Surnames

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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!

The most common thing for surnames is occupation. Most English folks are named after whatever it was your medeaval ancestor did for a living. Smith, Wheeler, Fowler, farmer, Cooper, Wagoner, Shoemaker, Cobbler, shepherd, or ...."being the ward of the pig sty" or "sty ward" (Steward/Stewart/Stuart).

^ That's true, and because the origin of such names goes back several centuries, quite a lot of the occupation names are not in use today, eg Cooper, Wainwright, Fowler, and 'Smith' itself, of course.

I dont know why birds are common as English surnames.

What about mammals?

Kings and nobles (and at least one prime minister) get to have lions in their titles and on their coats of arms. Richard the Lionhearted.

A certain Jewish guy named "David Green" became involved in Zionism and in the founding of Israel, and changed his name to "David Ben Gurion" ...Hebrew for "son of the lion". Later he became Israel's prime minister.

But not us commoners.

Among us commoners the name "Bear" is not unheard of. "Arthur" can be a last name (Bea Arthur), which also originally meant "bear". And there is a Behr paint company. I think that that is German for "bear".

But besides lions and bears I am hard put to think of mammalian surnames except those embedded into the names of occupations having to do with the said animals -which became surnames ...like Shepherd, and Stewert (sheep herder and sty ward).

I know of one family living in a town in Wales with a bird related sirname who are so famous for their criminal activities that they are known about up to 150 miles away!

Maybe it's like in Game Of Thrones where they use names such as Snow and Sand for a surname if you are born illegitimately.

So in the old days if you was a bastard your surname would be sparrow or parrot.

Mmmmm.....interesting. There's actually an English surname 'Bastard', which I've seen a few times.

Also some names come from whatever job your father had. I think Smith is one such name.

I knew someone with the surname 'Bird' a long time ago.

That's interesting

As a keen football supporter in the 1970s, I recall players like Keith Peacock (Charlton Athletic), Tony Woodcock (Nottingham Forest), Peter Swan (Bury), Kevin Bird (Mansfield Town), Barry Swallow (York City), Mark Nightingale (AFC Bournemouth), and a referee called Pat Partridge.

Some other names that come to mind:

Dan Quail (former Vice-President of USA), Joanna Gosling (BBC newsreader), Claire Goose (British actress), John Parrott (English snooker player), Peter Finch (English-Australian actor), Jean Rook (English journalist), Angela Eagle (British Member of Parliament).

Actually there are other mammals besides bears and lions that become surnames.

Deer, fox, and Wolf, are common surnames.

This is fascinating because my name is Richard , Richard Swallow. But my friends call me Dick. I also have a friend named Alan Partridge.

Is that so?