How long have people been using last names?

"Hey, Shorty!" "Hi, Skinny." "Here comes Blondie." Sounds familiar to you? It's a perfectly natural way to call people-give them a name that describes them in some way.
And you know, that's exactly the way first names were given originally! A girl born during a famine might be called Una (Ctelic for "famine"), a golden haired blonde might be called Blanche (French for "white"). A boy might be called David because it means "beloved".
A first name was all anybody had for thousands of years. Then, about the time Normans conquered England in 1066, last names, or surnames, were added to identify people better. The first name wasn't enough to set one person apart from another. For example, there might be two Davids in town, and one of them was quite lazy. So people began to call this one "David, who is also lazy," or "David do little". And this became David Doolittle.
The last names were originally called "ekenames". The word "eke" meant "also". And by the way, we get our word "nickname" from this word!
Once people got into the habit of giving a person two names, they thought of many ways of creating this second name. For example, one way was to mention the father's name. If John had a father called William, he might be called John Williamson, or John Williams, or John Wilson ( Will's son), or John Wills.
Another good way to identify people with second names was to mention the place where they lived or came from. A person who lived near the woods might be called Wood, of if he lived near the village green he might be called John Green.And then, of course, the work that a person did was a good way to identify him. So we have last names like Smith, Taylor, and Wright. ("Wright" means someone who does mechanical work).
The nearest thing to last names in ancient times existed among the Romans. A second name was sometimes added to indicate the family or clan to which a child belonged. Later , they even added a third name, which was a kind of description nickname.
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