surnames where do they come from

[Redroger]

I met someone with the surname Snowball about 10 years ago, and wondered at the unusual name too.
        

Dawn M

Surnames of England and Wales website shows 1556 Snowballs in England and Wales in 2002. 3 times more common than my own surname.

[Billyblue]

Surnames of England and Wales website shows 1556 Snowballs in England and Wales in 2002. 3 times more common than my own surname.

Well, there you go!  My Snowball was in sub tropical Queensland.           

And no, there were no melting moments.         

Dawn M

[Redroger]

I have encountered the surname Snowball twice, both had connections to north east England, one lived in Scarborough, the other Darlington.

[barryd]

Scarborough would be slightly too low for the Snowball there to have long time roots there. Its mainly Durham and Northumberland. I have only known one. In Salt Lake City, Utah.

[JenB]

Yes, Snowball is a fairly common surname in the north-east.
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0q5z/

We once knew a couple called Snowball: their daughter was known by one and all as 'The Snowflake'.

Another slightly unusual north-east surname name is Tulip.
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0q60/

[Redroger]

Seen Tulip once, funnily enough in the same street as the Snowball at Scarborough! Tulip 943 instances, still almost twice as frequent as my own name.

[barryd]

I have seen Pharoah/ Pharaoh in County Durham but they did not arrive there until the middle of Queen Victoria's reign. The largest amount seem to be from Portsea, Hampshire. However I am a world renowned expert on Freaks of County Durham with about 10 variations of spelling which makes things difficult on indexes. .

[Redroger]

When I lived in Doncaster, I knew people named Caesar, and Ptolomey. Well Doncaster was a Roman foundation, Danum,and in the early first century AD Egypt was a Roman colony, so perhaps that accounts for it.

[Guyana]

My family name derives from Cordwainer, (No, not Cordwangler, as per Kenneth Williams) which was a shoemaker, using leather from Cordova.
There have been a few reversions to the shoemaking trade throughout the centuries, and oddly, there is a shop in Seville, Spain, which carries our name, - a leather shop!