During the medieval ages, how did people distinguish between

Nicknames, lineages and occupations.

>>3261353
At least in certain places (esp. eastern Europe) patronymics and matronymics were popular. John son of Fred, or Sarah daughter of Rebeccah, to distinguish you from other Johns and Sarahs.

>>3261353

During the Medieval Ages, the actual pool of names you'd need to know would actually be very small.

>>3261353
Say your fathers name

>>3261353
>Like a city of any size is clearly going to have a bunch of Johns and Sarahs, right?

Only a few percent lived in the cities, the vast majority lived in smaller rural societies

>>3261353
Pete the mad
Greg one leg
Luke with the flute
Bill horsefucker
Sven the smith

I think you get the picture.

>>3262397
Doublemint Dave
Sinbad the Comfy Lad

>>3262455
Bigtits Widehips

Dan "the man with a plan" Schneider

Jaime "King and daughter slaughter"

>Be assassin
>Told to kill some schmuck
>no photo

wat do

>>3262467
>be me
>go to village market
>try to talk to Bigtits Widehips
>h-hey BigTits
>ugh what the fuck do you want Simon Smallharvest
>Chad Thundercrop walks up
>Hey Titties, this faggot bothering you?
>drop my scythe and run away home
I fucking hate Chad

>>3262486
I assume they're basically given all possible information including a possible sketch/scars. I bet assassins killed a lot of innocents and then identified them after the fact, so it's possible a few extra people died every time assassins were dispatched

>>3262514
I smirked.

In medieval Ireland people would generally be distinguished by their hair colour or physical attributes. So if you've got three Nialls and one has black hair, one has red hair, and one is a big guy for you, you'd call them Niall Dubh, Niall Rua and Niall Mór.

This is how it worked in some areas and in other areas you'd just jumble a man's name with his father and grandfather's together to form an informal patronym. So Seán Ó Cathasaigh (Seán O'Casey), son of Pól, son of Séamus, would be known to his neighbours as Seán Phóil Shéamuis.

File: knight approved.gif (4MB, 720x404px) Image search: [Google]

4MB, 720x404px

>>3262514
>Thundercrop
pretty good

>>3262514
>thundercrop

Keked in real life