Surname querie?

[tinaandliz]

How do i find out where my surname originated from ?

[mrs_overall]

go to Google, type in the words
origin name Smith (or whatever your surname is)
and hey presto!

[Buenchico]

Mrs Overall's method works for many surnames but not for all.

Larger public libraries will have copies of standard reference works like 'A Dictionary of English Surnames' by Reaney & Wilson.

Alternatively, just put a question in History>Genealogy, telling us your surname, and someone like Dot Hawkes or myself will look it up in own copies.

Chris

[dot.hawkes]

firstly you can identify the type of surname, is it a patronimic (named for the father) like Johnson, Thomson, is it a place name, like Derbyshire, Rotherham, is it an occupational
name, like Cooper, Sadler, Smith, is it a generic place name, like Hill, Brook, Dale.
Is it a name derived from the days of serfdom and derived from a Lord of The Manor, like Windsor, Spencer etc.
The other work you can do is look at the UK phone directories and see how prolific a name is in each one, even with the migration and urban growth of the past 200 years, this is still a very good way to identify where names are most common.
Once you have done this, you can then look at the International Genealogical Index which is available ay familysearch.org. this contains 400 years on transcribed church registers of baptism and marriage, which will help to further identify the geographical clusters of a surname.