Ask Neil Anything: Who invented surnames?

A few weeks ago a great question was asked by a curious caller: Where do surnames come from?

Senior Lecturer, Linguistics at Monash University, Howie Manns says English speakers can thank the French for their surnames.

“The first thing that happened was the noble French people had surnames, and a lot of the English people wanted to adopt those because they thought it would be fancy,” he said.

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