"We define ourselves by our names. They are the signifiers of our individuality, words chosen just for us, at birth. So what happened that allowed a Victorian genealogist to declare that the name Jones “is in Wales a perpetual incognito”? What’s it like living in a place, where, according to the same genealogist, someone calling out your name in the street “would indicate no one in particular"?...
ancestral roll calls were dealt a deathblow in 1536 when Henry VIII—himself hardly a model of cognominate originality—decided to incorporate Wales into neighboring England. The Act of Union that was drawn up declared that English would be the only language of the courts and that those using the Welsh language would be forbidden from holding public office. In the past parents who would have named their child after the ancient pagan heroes and gods of Wales, like Llywarch or Gwalchmai, were now forced to choose from a small basket of politically expedient Anglicized names like John and David...
As Professor Prys Morgan, co-author of the essential bedtime read, Welsh Surnames, describes, the Welsh clung to the patronymic naming tradition, but this name had now to be fixed not added to with each generation. The popularity of John as a safe apolitical name—the Welsh language doesn’t even have a letter “J” in it–quickly saw Jones (“John’s son”) spread like wildfire through the valleys."
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-jones-became-one-of-worlds-most-common-last-names
I find last names and the sort of social/political/historical background of them really interesting. There is so much information there and so much has identity.
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