Surnames

Kathleen Dalton Woodbury wrote an interesting response to a question about the use of surnames in a fantasy book. To quote:

As for surnames, supposedly there are four types:

location (from a place) John from Starktown => John Starktown (by the way, in some cultures "of" indicates nobility--"Elizabeth of England" means she's the queen)

patronymic (son of) John son of Eric => John Ericson

occupational Stark the blacksmith => Stark Smith

descriptive John the strong one => John Strong

Surnames are supposed to have come into being because a way was needed to distinguish between John the smith and John the farmer, or Eric the red(head) or Eric the bold.

Surnames don't mean what they once meant, but if you have a culture that uses them, you need to give one to each of your characters. (By the way, I have been told that surnames in Rwanda--look up Rwanda + April 1994--are different for every family member. They are chosen by the parents to represent their hopes for each of their children--and they help keep your enemies from knowing who is related to you.)

One advantage to giving a character a surname is that you can refer to the character by more than just "he" and the first name, and you can have other characters show their relationship to the character by how they refer to him (Mr. Stark, old Starky, John, Johnny, and so on).