This is a list of surnames in which the order is random.
Swindlehurst EnglishFrom the place name
Swinglehurst in the Forest of Bowland in central Lancashire, derived from Old English
swin "swine, pig",
hyll "hill" and
hyrst "wood, grove".
Hoggard EnglishOccupational name meaning
"pig herder", from Old English
hogg "hog" and
hierde "herdsman, guardian".
Blakeley EnglishFrom name of various English places, derived from Old English
blæc "black" and
leah "woodland, clearing".
Buckley 2 IrishFrom Irish
Ó Buachalla meaning
"descendant of Buachaill", a nickname meaning "cowherd, servant".
Downer EnglishName for someone who lived on or near a down, which is an English word meaning
"hill".
Killough IrishIndicated a person who was from Killough (County Down, Northern Ireland) or Killough (Wicklow, Ireland). The place name Killough means "church on the lake", derived from the Irish
cill "church" and
loch "lake".
McNamara IrishFrom Irish
Mac Conmara meaning
"son of Conmara". The given name
Conmara is composed of
cú "hound" and
muir "sea".
Rapp 2 GermanFrom Middle High German
raben meaning
"raven", a nickname for a person with black hair.
Reich German, JewishNickname for a wealthy or powerful person, from Old High German
rihhi "rich, powerful".
McDermott IrishAnglicized form of Irish
Mac Diarmada meaning
"son of Diarmaid". The McDermotts were nobility in the Kingdom of Connaught, a province in Ireland.
Altamura ItalianFrom the name of the Italian city of Altamura, which means "high walls" in Italian.
Flower EnglishFrom Middle English
flour meaning
"flower, blossom", derived from Old French
flur, Latin
flos. This was a nickname given to a sweet person. In other cases it could be a metonymic occupational name for a maker of flour (a word derived from the same source).
Zima mu Czech, Slovak, Polish, RussianFrom an Old Slavic word meaning
"winter". This may have been a nickname for a person with a chilly personality.
Ware 1 EnglishFrom Old English
wer meaning
"dam, weir", indicating someone who lived near such a structure.
Como 2 ItalianFrom the name of the city of Como in Lombardy, the rival city of Milan during the Middle Ages. Its name may come from a Celtic root meaning "valley".
Ueda JapaneseFrom Japanese
上 (ue) meaning "above, top, upper" and
田 (ta) meaning "field, rice paddy".
Van Breda DutchMeans
"from Breda", a city in the province of Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands. It is derived from Dutch
breed meaning "wide" and
Aa, the name of a river.
Contreras SpanishFrom the name of a town in Burgos, Spain, derived from Late Latin
contraria meaning "area opposite".
Cheng 1 ChineseFrom Chinese
程 (chéng) meaning
"rule, order, regulations", also referring to the territory of Cheng (in present-day Henan province) that existed during the Zhou dynasty.
Eichel GermanMeans
"acorn" in German, indicating a person who lived near an oak tree.
Knef GermanOccupational name for a shoemaker, derived from Low German
knif meaning
"shoemaker's knife".
Seymour 2 EnglishFrom an English place name, derived from Old English
sæ "sea" and
mere "lake".
Charmchi PersianMeans
"leather worker" in Persian, from
چرم (charm) meaning "leather" combined with
چی (chī), denoting an occupation.
Bologna ItalianFrom the name of the city of Bologna in northern Italy. It may derive from a Celtic word meaning "settlement".
Goffe EnglishDerived from Breton or Cornish
goff meaning
"smith", referring to a metalworker.
Haggard EnglishFrom a nickname meaning
"wild, untamed, worn", from Old French, ultimately from a Germanic root.
Romano 2 ItalianDenoted a person from the city of
Rome, either a resident or someone who visited as a pilgrim. In Calabria it was also used to designate a person from New Rome, a name for Constantinople.
Twist English, LiteratureProbably from the name of towns in England and Wales called
Twist or
Twiss. This surname was used by Charles Dickens for the hero of his novel
Oliver Twist (1838), about an orphan surviving the streets of London. Dickens probably had the vocabulary word
twist in mind when naming the character.
Bagni ItalianFrom Italian
bagno "bath", derived from Latin
balneum, referring to a person who worked as a bath house attendant.
Baardwijk DutchFrom the name of a town in the Netherlands, possibly from
Baard, a variant of
Bert, and
wijk meaning "neighbourhood, district".
Yap EnglishFrom a nickname for a clever or cunning person, from Middle English
yap meaning
"devious, deceitful, shrewd".
Picard FrenchOriginally denoted a person from Picardy, a historical region of northern France. It is derived from Old French
pic meaning "pike, spike".
Garbo ItalianFrom a nickname meaning
"politeness" in Italian. A famous bearer of this name was the Swedish actress Greta Garbo (1905-1990), born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson.
Wheatley EnglishFrom any of the various places in England with this name, meaning "wheat clearing" in Old English.
Green EnglishDescriptive name for someone who often wore the colour green or someone who lived near the village green.
Laganà ItalianOccupational name for a greengrocer, meaning
"vegetables" in southern Italian dialects, ultimately from Greek
λάχανον (lachanon).
Slezák m Czech, SlovakOriginally a name for a person from
Silesia, a historical region that is nowadays split between Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic.
Dane 2 EnglishOriginally denoted a Dane, that is a person from Denmark.
Ewart 2 EnglishFrom the name of an English town, derived from Old English
ea "river" and
worþ "enclosure".
Lamont ScottishFrom the medieval Gaelic given name
Lagmann, derived from Old Norse
lǫgmaðr meaning
"law man".
Iturburua BasqueMeans
"by the fountain" in Basque, from
iturri "fountain, spring".
Lehr GermanFrom Old High German
loh meaning
"meadow, clearing".
Angenent DutchReferred to person who lived at the end of the road or the village, derived from Dutch
an gen ent meaning
"at the end".
Mortimer EnglishFrom the name of a town in Normandy meaning
"dead water, still water" in Old French.
Abbaticchio ItalianMeans
"little abbot" from Italian
abate and the diminutive suffix
-icchio, from Latin
-iculus.
Varela SpanishDerived from Spanish
vara "stick". It may have originally been given to one who used a stick in his line of work, for example an animal herder.
Acquati ItalianFrom the name of a village, part of the city of Lecco in Lombardy. Its name is presumably derived from Italian
acqua "water".
Layton EnglishDerived from the name of English towns, meaning "town with a leek garden" in Old English.
Hyland 1 EnglishTopographic name meaning
"high land", from Old English
heah and
land.
McRae ScottishFrom Gaelic
Mag Raith meaning
"son of Rath", a given name meaning "prosperity" or "grace".
Agnusdei ItalianFrom Latin
Agnus Dei meaning
"lamb of God". This was a nickname for someone who was particularly religious or someone who wore this symbol.
Hahn GermanFrom a nickname for a proud or pugnacious person, from Old High German
hano meaning
"rooster, cock".
Easton EnglishFrom the name of various places meaning "east town" in Old English.
Philips English, DutchMeans
"son of Philip". Famous bearers of this surname were Frederick Philips (1830-1900) and his son Gerard (1858-1942), the Dutch founders of the company Philips.
Ahlström SwedishOrnamental name derived from Swedish
al (Old Norse
ǫlr) meaning "alder" and
ström (Old Norse
straumr) meaning "stream".
Kurucz HungarianDerived from the Hungarian word
kuruc, referring to rebels who fought against the Habsburgs in the late 17th to early 18th century.
Ziskind JewishOrnamental name, or from a given name, meaning
"sweet child", derived from Yiddish
זיס (zis) meaning "sweet" and
קינד (kind) meaning "child", both words of Old High German origin.
Čtvrtník m CzechDerived from Czech
čtvrtlán meaning
"one quarter of a lán", where a
lán is a medieval Czech measure of land (approximately 18 hectares). The name denoted someone who owned this much land.
Washington EnglishFrom a place name meaning "settlement belonging to Wassa's people", from the given name
Wassa and Old English
tun meaning "enclosure, yard, town". A famous bearer was George Washington (1732-1799), the first president of the United States. This surname was sometimes adopted by freed slaves, resulting in a high proportion of African-American bearers.
Vlachos m GreekMeans
"Romanian, Wallachian" in Greek, from Old Slavic
volxŭ "Romance-speaker" (of Germanic origin).
Womack EnglishOf uncertain origin. One theory suggests that it indicated a dweller by a hollow oak tree, derived from Old English
womb "hollow" and
ac "oak".
Chambers EnglishFrom Old French
chambre meaning
"chamber, room", an occupational name for a person who worked in the inner rooms of a mansion.
Asano JapaneseFrom Japanese
浅 (asa) meaning "shallow" and
野 (no) meaning "field, wilderness".
Anjema FrisianDenoted a person from the village of Anjum in the Netherlands. It possibly means "corner" in Dutch.
Quinlan IrishFrom Irish
Ó Caoindealbháin, which means
"descendant of Caoindealbhán", a given name meaning "handsome form" (using a diminutive suffix).
Villalobos SpanishHabitational name for a person from the town of Villalobos, Spain, which is derived from Spanish
villa "town" and
lobo "wolf".
John EnglishDerived from the given name
John. A famous bearer is British musician Elton John (1947-), born Reginald Dwight.
Douglas ScottishFrom the name of a town in Lanarkshire, itself named after a tributary of the River Clyde called the Douglas Water, derived from Gaelic
dubh "dark" and
glais "water, river" (an archaic word related to
glas "grey, green"). This was a Scottish Lowland clan, the leaders of which were powerful earls in the medieval period.
Rothschild JewishFrom Middle High German
rot "red" and
schilt "shield", or Yiddish
רויט (roit) and
שילד (shild). The famous Rothschild family of bankers took their name from a house with a red shield on it.
Krüger 2 GermanIn southern Germany an occupational name for a potter, derived from Middle High German
kruoc meaning
"jug, pot".
Sgro ItalianNickname for a curly-haired person, from Greek
σγουρός (sgouros) meaning
"curly".
Devin 2 French, EnglishNickname for a person who acted divinely or prophetically, from Old French
devin meaning
"divine" or
"seer, fortune teller", ultimately from Latin
divinus.
Kowalski m PolishFrom Polish
kowal meaning
"blacksmith". This is the second most common surname in Poland.
McIntosh ScottishFrom Scottish Gaelic
Mac an Tòisich meaning
"son of the chief".
Brent EnglishOriginally derived from the name of a hill (or the village nearby) in Somerset, perhaps derived from a Celtic word meaning "hill".
Baarsma FrisianIndicated a person coming from the small town of Beers in Frisia.
Sommer 2 GermanFrom Middle High German
sumber or
sommer meaning
"basket, wickerwork, drum".
Saller 1 GermanOriginally denoted a person from the town of Sallern in Bavaria, possibly from a Celtic element meaning "stream".
Piątek PolishMeans
"Friday" in Polish, derived from the word
piąty meaning "fifth".
Gardener EnglishOccupational surname for one who was a gardener, from Old French
jardin meaning "garden" (of Frankish origin).
Gilmore Scottish, IrishAnglicized form of Scottish Gaelic
MacGilleMhoire or Irish Gaelic
Mac Giolla Mhuire meaning
"son of the servant of Moire".
Langford EnglishFrom any of various places in England with this name, derived from Old English
lang "long" and
ford "ford, river crossing".
Piovene ItalianFrom the name of the town of Piovene Rocchette in Veneto, Italy.
Gage French, EnglishOccupational name derived either from Old French
jauge "measure" (a name for an assayer) or
gage "pledge, payment" (a name for a moneylender). Both words were ultimately of Frankish origin.
Southgate EnglishName for a person who lived near the southern gate of a town or in a town named Southgate, from Old English
suþ and
gæt.
Gronchi ItalianFrom the Tuscan word
gronchio meaning
"numb, bent". This is an Italian regional surname typical of Tuscany. A famous bearer was the Italian president Giovanni Gronchi (1887-1978).
Pan 2 ChineseFrom Chinese
潘 (pān) meaning
"water in which rice has been rinsed", and also referring to a river that flows into the Han River.
Hrabě m CzechMeans
"count" in Czech, perhaps used to denote someone who worked for a count or acted like a count.
Vadas HungarianFrom Hungarian
vad meaning
"wild", either a nickname or an occupational name for a hunter of wild game.
Bonfils FrenchDerived from Old French
bon fils meaning
"good son".
Espina SpanishMeans
"thorn" in Spanish, a name for someone who lived near a thorn bush.
Galilei Italian (Rare)From the given name
Galileo. A notable bearer was the Italian astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Both his given name and surname were from an earlier 15th-century ancestor (a doctor).
Amano JapaneseFrom Japanese
天 (ama) meaning "heaven" and
野 (no) meaning "field, wilderness".
Peña SpanishOriginally denoted a person who lived near a jutting rock, from Spanish
peña meaning
"rock, cliff".