Where does a name come from?

Now here's something to ponder. Who the heck comes up with your names? Half the time you see a name and you can never pronounce it.

We already know mother and father came up with the name, but who came up with mother and father? Obviously their parents, but who came up with their parents names?

And so forth and so forth....

And don't say Adam and Eve. It started some where.

Who was the first ancestor to get the ball rolling on crazy unpronounceable First and Last names?

Registering for classes and I swear a name really has to have like up to 40 letters in it? Well it seems anyway, it probably had like 10 or 15 at the most.

My guess is it was mankind's first real form of identification.

Then when the population became large enough where people started re-using names, first names were no longer unique identifiers. So people would uniquely identify you by your name and your father's name, like 'Micheal son of Jacob" which got shortened to "Jacobson", and in some circumstances by your occupation ("John Carpenter" for example) and we got these things called last names. Then the population became so large that those no longer uniquely identify people either, so we're all given numbers and branded like cattle.

Why the need to uniquely identify people? All in all, it's a mechanism for control.

reply to post by Manhater


i have no answer for you.. but i would think that in the beginning of names.. it was not at all like the names we have today.. it probably started to grow longer and longer as time went on..

i think iv heard somewhere that they used to name children by the day they were born on.. but where did they come up with days? and the word for days?
how did language start ?!

Ancient humans needed to be able to identify each other in some way, in order to collaborate (like hunting for example)

Caveman OGG, needed Caveman UGG to circle around the prey, while Caveman EEEK pretended to be a tree…….

How would Caveman OGG be able to advise each Caveman what to do without a personal identifier for each?

Once an identifier is put in place, it is hard to lose that label (see below nickname that has been with me for 20 years)

Mickierocksman