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Surnames, or names superadded, it may be useful to notice at the 

 outset, have at all times and in all nations been but a kind of second, or 

 after-growth, springing up not from caprice but from necessity. In the 

 more primitive stages of society where population is but scanty and 

 thinly scattered a single appellative seems to be all that is required for 

 particularising one person from another. Without referring to the custom 

 prevailing among the native tribes of America or Australia at the present 

 day, we see this well exemplified in Biblical nomenclature. In that oldest 

 of all Books, the Book of Genesis, we find the single names, Adam, Eve, 

 Cain, Abel, Seth, Adah, Zillah, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, &c. 

 At a somewhat later period in the history of the Israelites a second name 

 began to be applied, at least in some few instances, as Joshua the Son 

 of Nun, Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Jair the Son of Manasseh. It 

 must be remembered that at this time the Israelites were living in a small 

 corner of Egypt and had greatly multiplied in numbers, so that it is pro- 

 bable these second names were given for the purpose of distinguishing 

 those to whom they were applied from others of the same name. They are 

 probably the earliest surnames to be met with, and they are examples of 

 what are termed patronymics, formed precisely in the same way and from 

 the same cause that hundreds of our present surnames were formed some 

 six or seven centuries ago, e.g. 3oh\\so7i, the son of John ; Williamson ; 

 Robinsow ; or the Norman Fitz Herbert, the son of Herbert, or Herbertsow ; 

 or the Scotch jl/ac.Donald, Donaldson, or the son of Donald ; or the Welsh 

 Ap Thomas the son of Thomas, or Thomson ; or the Manx Killip, /. e. the 

 son of Phillip or Phillipson. In still later times when they had become 

 still more numerous and settled down in cities, the Jewish people in 

 addition to these ]}afro7ii/mics wliich they still retained, as seen in such 

 names as ^arjonas, i.e. the son of Jonas, had recourse to other kinds of 

 surnames, svich as Simon the Zealot, Avhich is of the descriptive class, or 

 Simon of Cyrene and Judas of Galilee which are local, i.e. denote either 

 the place of birth or residence. 



Again, if we turn to the oldest of extant Heathen writings, e.g. 

 Homer's Iliad, we find the characters there designated by single names, as 

 Achilles, Ajax, Hector, Priam, &c,, with a few patronymics as Atrides, 



