Surnames in Fantasy?

In mine only the nobility have surnames. The nobles from the Western lands have surnames that match the name of their city or town. The rest of the nobles have surnames that I thought sounded like good surnames. So, I have Lords Solomon Arthanis and Havlin Tathis, etc.

I like what Iain Banks did in his sci-fi standalone Against A Dark Background: in that, the higher you are in social class the fewer names you have. The very top rank of ancient aristocratic families only bear one name, because everyone should know who they are. It's the lower classes that must differentiate their names.

In my traditional fantasy I'm serializing, surnames come a bit differently for different cultures and classes. Some have surnames based on their jobs, some on an important ancestor, some on their social status.

Examples: Wards of the state in one realm are all dubbed "Nonsire", since they're without a father. The narrator Evonalé Yunan has a name that calls her illegitimate, due to the -an suffix.

Think about why the surnames exist. Then build from there.

I use the name of the country as part of the surname for the royal family in my ms. The country's name is "Laryial," and the family's name is "RynLaryial." I decided to use 'Ryn-' the same way '-son,' 'ben-,' and 'bin-' are used here on 'Earth.' It's part of worldbuilding, I guess. I give my characters 4 names: First name is their use-name, second is based on their birth month (i.e., Octobria), third is based on a gemstone of some kind (i.e. Malachitus), and then their family name. Hope this helps!

Usually, I'm basing my fantasy culture on a real one. For one story, I used Persian/Iranian, Sanskrit, and Arabic given names and last names. Most of my fantasy doesn't use surnames though.

I've created a vast 'verse (called Middangard in some tongues) where the 'northern lands' all have languages based on Celtic or Germanic languages. Then I've adopted naming schemes from the cultures I've used as inspiration for elements of those lands. So several, based on the Nordic lands, use the '-son' or '-dottir' suffix (in the appropriate language), while one based on Irish cultures has a long surname that gives father, mother and grandparents, but the person is more commonly identified by a nickname. In another land, the nobility have no surnames, only Houses named after their landholding (i.e. the House of Dark Cove is that of the Earls of Dark Cove), while commoners do have surnames, but cannot name themselves after an actual place - thereby making surnames (more commonly known as kin-names or kindred-names) usually occupational, patronymic, or descriptive (e.g. Armstrong, Redlock, etc.).

Names are what got me into etymology and a potential obsession that has resulted in me probably spending more time world-building than writing.

Another land just uses a nice standard mix of names like our own, but almost all are based on Welsh or Old English/English (essentially as little non-Germanic and non-Celtic influence as possible).

Yes, I'm obsessed. Can't find it in myself to care. Shame I can't get a job researching etymologies.

I don't really have anything to add, just wanted to say what an interesting thread this is. Gave me a few ideas on coming up with surnames.

I use the standards, place of origin, group belonging or inherited family names. "Hill" because they lived on a hill. "Hammer" because of their profession. "Bear" because of clan. "Whatever-son" because of family. I also like the Asian "backward" types, village name and surname first then the spoken name.

None of my characters have surnames, but there are trends in family naming schemes that make it simple enough to guess which region, age, and often even bloodline of a person. It tends to be something to do with syllabic emphasis or a certain set of sounds.