Surnames Quotes & Sayings

The name " Rothschild" came from the red shield, or, as it is said in German, the " rothes schild," which designated the house in which the family lived. In those days there were no street numbers. Each family hung out some picture or emblem to mark their abode. When families were compelled to choose surnames this Jewish family, remembering the red shield, decided to call themselves Rothschild. — Anonymous

I thrive best hermit style.
with a beard and a pipe. — Bjork

And does Alan have a last name?" I asked.
"Probably," said Curtis, "but we have a 'if you have to ask, you don't need to know because I don't want to friend you on Facebook' policy. — Aldous Mercer

The sad thing is that often when you expose your secrets and become more honest with yourself, you find the reaction from the outside world is more complicated than the intense guilt you yourself have inflicted. — James Scott

It seemed to him that Filipinos didn't attach too much importance to what their first names could do to their fate, only to their surnames. — Clarissa V. Militante

Some writers, I'm told, look for their characters' surnames in telephone directories. I don't - it seems too obvious. Or too deliberate: if you go looking for names, you're bound to find them, of course, but I've always had a superstitious hunch that the names you find by accident are always going to be better and more satisfying somehow. — Sophie Hannah

Many people nowadays have surnames that reveal their ancestors' fairy origins. Otherlander and Fairchild are two. — Susanna Clarke

McDonald's, meanwhile, continues busily to harass small shopkeepers and restaurateurs of Scottish descent for that nationality's uncompetitive predisposition toward the Mc prefix on its surnames. The company sued the McAl an's sausage stand in Denmark; the Scottish-themed sandwich shop McMunchies in Buckinghamshire; went after Elizabeth McCaughey's McCoffee shop in the San Francisco Bay Area; and waged a twenty-six-year battle against a man named Ronald McDonald whose McDonald's Family Restaurant in a tiny town in Il inois had been around since 1956. — Naomi Klein

Children's and YA books are about being brave and kind, about learning wisdom and love, about that journey into and through maturity that we all keep starting, and starting again, no matter how old we get. I think that's why so many adults read YA: we're never done coming of age. — Betsy Cornwell

Novelists want to be published and need a publisher to decide to print 20,000 copies. So you need to entertain on some level. I want to reach out and connect. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Only classical composers were known by just their surnames, and this suited my mudlark temperament quite nicely. — Morrissey

There are many times where even I, at certain points in the evening, after a few drinks, can't pronounce my own surname. — Milla Jovovich

The McEvoys, for their part, apparently had two dominant founding Y chromosomes, a theory that is supported by records revealing that when the name was anglicized, two ancient families, the Mac Fhiodhbhuidhes and the Mac an Bheathas, were drawn in under the same banner and both became McEvoys. History also indicates that fully three Irish surnames - McGuiness, Neeson, and McCreesh - are all anglicizations of the same Gaelic name Mac Aonghusa (son of Angus), which DNA evidence confirms, as all three groups overlap strongly on one Y. — Christine Kenneally

It's nice to have a few names. I use a few names myself. I use a few different surnames. I call myself James sometimes. I actually use my mother's name as a professional name. But if someone calls me Mr. Murphy or Mr. Gillen, I don't like that. I don't like being called 'mister,' and I don't like being called 'sir.' — Aidan Gillen

We found water. We passed into a more fertile country where were grass and fruit. We found the trail to Babylon because the soul of a free man looks at life as a series of problems to be solved and solves them, while the soul of a slave whines, 'What can I do who am but a slave? — George S. Clason

The greatest, most frightful and destructive wars of all time have been those which were started in "defense" of God, as if "he" cared what man says or does. — Joseph Lewis

Jace: Herondale, on the other hand, is melodic. Dulcet, one might say. Think of the sound of 'Clary Herondale.'
Clary: Oh, my god, that sounds horrible.
Jace: We all must sacrifice for love. — Cassandra Clare

A few names were known in full, some in part, some not at all. No one cared. Except in clearly unreasonable cases, a soldier was generally called by the name he preferred, or by what he called himself, and no great effort was made to disentangle Christian names from surnames from nicknames. — Tim O'Brien

I've always moved by my heart. I've moved by the spirit of what I feel was right for me next. I always pray and ask God: 'What's the next thing? What am I supposed to do next?' — Ricky Skaggs

One's head is finite. You pour more and more things into it - surnames, chronologies, affiliations - and it packs them away in its tunnels, and eventually you find that you have a book about something that you publish. — Nicholson Baker

As for women, whether they know it or not, they are name nomads. Their surnames are here today, gone tomorrow. Throughout their lives, women fill out official forms in different ways, apply for new passports and design several signatures. — Elif Shafak

The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth. — W.B.Yeats

Her full name is Eva Morelli Stein Hathaway. She retains her surnames not because they define her, but because she defines them; that is, except for the first--Morelli. Ironically it is the one she's least familiar with... — Maryann D'Agincourt

You can find virtually everybody black back as far as the 1870 census. Why 1870? That's when the ex-slaves first have surnames. But if you find your great-great-grandfather in 1870 and it says he's 50, that means he was born in 1820 and you're back to 1820 already. For an American that's pretty damned good, you know? — Henry Louis Gates

He who is ignorant of Motion, says Aristotle , is necessarily ignorant of all natural things ... Not only was he entirely in the dark respecting the Laws, he was completely wrong in his conception of the nature of Motion ... He thought that every body in motion naturally tends to rest. — George Henry Lewes

In life, all things are not constant or equal, the inequalities are so loud; change and uncertainty are the order of the day. It is these changes, inequalities and uncertainties that make it more imperative that you deliberately plan your way to success. — Archibald Marwizi

It's Smith, actually.' Dr Smith smiled, bowing. 'I've remembered that my name is Smith. Almost definitely. Good old English name. Hopefully means 'noble valiant warriot' and not 'he who hits kittens with a hammer.' You'd be surprised the derivations of common surnames in the English countryside ... — James Goss