Some surnames hide a tiny message: child of.
Meet three pieces first:
Who can spot Mac, Ó or -son in a surname on the board? Call it out when you see one.
Stretch if you notice extras later: Fitz, -ez, -ski. Same job, other languages.
Names hide secret pieces. A fort is always somebody's fort.
Place names squeeze meaning into short bits the same way surnames do. Each name on the board comes apart into pieces, and one of those pieces is usually a person.
Tap each place, watch the name come apart, and find the person still sitting inside it. After the first reveal, whisper to your partner: person piece or landscape piece?
You are language detectives again, same skill as names, different words.
Worked example first: school / scoil — both grew from the same old idea of a place of learning. True cousins.
Now sort each pair: thumbs up if they are true cousins (shared root, same job), thumbs down if they only look alike or are false friends. Classroom words travel further than you think.
Open your copy. Write these three name-parts carefully, with every mark:
Then write your own surname and what you think it once meant. If nobody knows, write who you would ask.
Many surnames once named a job or a family line. Smith once meant someone who worked metal. Murphy links to an Irish family name. Mac and Ó still mean child or grandson of someone. Fort names still carry a person who held the land.
Use a choice stem so you can talk about the idea, not private family detail:
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