Ancestral family names

What did “Walkers” do, exactly? Meanings of widespread surnames

Image: Jonny Gios

Do you have a very popular surname? Have you ever looked up its meaning? Well, if you are a Smith, a Murphy, a Miller, or a Lee, you probably already know a bit of the history of your ancestors. Do you think you can guess the origin of these 12 widespread last names? Read on to go back a few generations and learn some names’ backstories!

Image: Chris Linnett

One of the most common surnames in the English-speaking world! As you may know, its origin is occupational, and it refers to "one who works with metal."

It derives from the Old English smið. Nowadays, it remains the most common surname in America. Interestingly, its synonymous versions are just as popular in other languages, like Schmidt in German and Ferraro in Italian.

Image: Boudewijn Huysmans

The surname "Miller" referred to someone who operated a mill; these were vital in medieval communities. The surname spread across Britain, Ireland, and later the U.S., until it became one of the most recognizable surnames.

Image: Kseniia Rastvorova

"Lee" is trickier because it has multiple origins, depending on the culture. In English, it comes from Old English lēah, meaning a clearing or meadow, so it was originally a toponymic surname for someone living near a grassy field.

In China, "Li" (often spelled Lee) is one of the oldest and most common surnames, meaning "plum," and is associated with ancient dynasties and scholars.

Image: Sergiu Vălenaș

The surname "Clark" comes from the Latin clericus, meaning "clergyman" or "scholar." In medieval England, clerks were among the few literate people, so the term broadened to describe scribes, secretaries, and record-keepers.

Image: John Finkelstein

"Murphy" is the most widespread Irish surname, anglicized from the Gaelic Ó Murchadha, meaning "descendant of Murchadh."

The name Murchadh combines muir (sea) and cath (battle), so it literally means "sea warrior." With multiple unrelated Murphy families across Ireland, the name spread widely.

Image: Shiori Miyashita

"Walker" is an occupational surname as well. So, what did walkers do? Their job was fulling, the process of cleaning and thickening woven wool, often by literally walking on it in troughs of water. The word derives from the Old English wealcere, meaning "one who fulls cloth."

Image: Jahanzeb Ahsan

"Allen" is of Celtic origin, derived from the Gaelic Ailín or Breton Alan, meaning "little rock." However, very similar terms can also be interpreted as "handsome," "fair," or "beautiful." Each family will probably get to pick their preferred meaning.

Image: Quan-You Zhang

The surname "Wright" comes from the Old English word wryhta or wyrhta, meaning "worker" or "maker."

It was often used with a prefix to specify the craft, such as "wheelwright" for wheel makers or "shipwright" for shipbuilders. Over time, "Wright" stood alone as a surname for skilled tradespeople. It’s one of the oldest English occupational surnames.

Image: petr sidorov

"Nguyen" (pronounced roughly "nwin" or "ngwee-en," depending on dialect) is the most common surname in Vietnam, held by around 40% of the population. It derives from the name of a Chinese musical instrument, the ruan.

Image: Ameya Sawant

The surname "Hill" is of English and sometimes Scottish origin, derived from the Old English hyll, meaning exactly what it sounds like: someone who lived by or on a hill. Simple geographic names like this were among the earliest surnames in use, since they helped distinguish local communities.

Image: Eric Prouzet

The Scottish surname "Campbell" comes from the Gaelic Caimbeul, meaning "crooked mouth" (cam = crooked, beul = mouth).

It began as a descriptive nickname, likely for someone with a distinctive facial feature. Over centuries, it became strongly associated with Clan Campbell, one of the most powerful Highland clans.

Image: KaLisa Veer

The surname "Reed" (also spelled Read or Reid) has several origins in England and Scotland. Most often it was descriptive, from Old English rēad, meaning "red," referring to someone with red hair or a ruddy complexion.

Debunking popular myths

Science exposed: The 10 senses you didn't know you had

Image: Merlin Lightpainting

Contrary to popular belief, our body is capable of perceiving a lot more than what sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch have to offer. Scientists studying perception have discovered at least 30 senses in addition to the five described by Aristotle more than 2,000 years ago. These complementary senses are called interoceptors, since they allow us to recognize and feel our inner sensations. Join us to learn about 10 senses you didn't know you had!

Image: Ahmad Odeh

Kinaesthesia is a sense that allows us to perceive the position, movement, and state of our body, internal and external. In our daily activities, we hardly notice it, but it’s there, working for us all the time.

This process is, in turn, subdivided into two senses: proprioception —the perception of our body in the space around us— and interoception —the perception of our internal organs. But we will look into these two in more detail below.

Image: Luiz Rogério Nunes

Proprioception is the ability to perceive the position and movement of our limbs and torso, which allows us to control our body during daily activities. It is, in turn, the innate ability to discern the position and movement of body parts independently of visual information.

This faculty involves an intricate interplay between muscle memory, spatial awareness, and feedback from muscles and joints. It is fundamental to perform complex movements with precision. Thanks to proprioception, you can tell where your different body parts are located, even if your eyes are closed or you are not looking at your body.

Image: Shutter Speed

Interoception is the ability to sense our organism, providing information about the functioning or dysfunction of the internal organs. Although often underestimated, interoception is vital for survival: it helps us to maintain body balance and allows us to perceive when we are injured, when something is wrong with our body, when we need more oxygen, or to eat or drink water.

Interoceptive receptors are distributed throughout the body, usually in all the major organs and blood vessels. However, not all people's interoceptive receptors function correctly, which can cause different problems. These alterations can be due to excess or deficit; there may be a hypersensitivity that causes the interoceptive receptors to be activated with little stimulation, or they may not be triggered at all.

Image: Anirudh

This one's tricky. It is hard to define because it is a more abstract sense. In appearance, it is similar to interoception and proprioception, but it is a bit more complex. Cenesthesia is described as the awareness of being alive, the sensation of well-being or feeling sick. It is the name given to the singular set of sensations that an individual possesses of his or her own body.

In other words, everyone feels different: this unique and intangible experience of the inner self is cenesthesia.

Image: Hasan Almasi

Nociception is a neural process by which the body handles potentially harmful stimuli against body tissues. The term was coined by the British neurophysiologist Charles Scott Sherrington to describe the physiological process of pain. It derives from the Latin nocere, meaning "to damage".

This mechanism is crucial to protect the organism, as it allows us to identify and react to external injuries or aggressions. However, there are several disorders that can alter the way some people perceive pain.

Image: Liana S

Thermoception is the ability to perceive temperature and is a critical sensory function. It relies on thermal receptors in the skin, which send signals to the brain through specific nerve fibers. These receptors respond to different temperature ranges, allowing us to distinguish between cold, hot, and neutral temperatures.

Thermoception also allows us to adapt to different temperatures. But this ability varies from person to person. People sense temperature changes differently due to factors such as age, lifestyle habits, and health problems. In fact, some people with certain medical conditions like diabetes or Parkinson's, for example, may have difficulty sensing and reacting to temperature changes.

Image: Jael Rodriguez

As its name suggests, equilibrioception is the sense of balance and is one of the most important physiological senses. Basically, it is the sense that gives us spatial awareness and allows us to walk without falling. It involves the visual system and the vestibular system through the inner ear.

In humans, balance develops during the first years of life and begins to decline in old age. Some animals have this sense more developed than humans; for example, cats can walk and keep their balance on very narrow surfaces using their inner ears and tails without falling.

Image: Andy Cordery

Our perception of time is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, deeply rooted in the brain’s neurological processes. This intricate sense, called chronoception, is not just a passive recording of events, but an active construction of temporal experiences.

There are no "time receptors" in the body, so it’s not a traditional sense. Chronoception is a sophisticated cognitive and emotional process that not only has a neurological basis but also a psychological dimension influenced by age, culture, biological rhythms, and temporal illusions.

Image: Geoffroy Hauwen

Simply put, baresthesia is the sense responsible for detecting pressure changes in the body. This function is carried out by specialized receptors located primarily in the skin, muscles, joints, and other tissues.

Baresthesia is essential for the regulation of balance, posture, and proper interaction with the environment. Alterations related to this sense are associated with several medical conditions, including spinal cord injuries, strokes, and degenerative disorders, among others.

Image: leyre del rio

Not all human beings have developed this sense. It refers to the perception of smells when listening to music, or even smelling and tasting colors. In other words, it is the joint perception or interference of several types of feelings from different senses in the same perceptive act.

A synaesthete can, for example, hear colors, see sounds, or perceive taste when touching an object with a certain texture.