In the history of humans, the need for surnames is rather recent.
The use of surnames rose up with population increases, and the ability for people and governments to keep documents and often the decision a government made to start with demands for legal surnames has much to do with - you guessed it - statistics meant to be used to plea for funding or taxation.
Handwritten records came first, of course. Sometimes only the educated - the priests and nuns - the nobles and aristocrats - went to school to learn to read and write. For some time the highest ranking people did not learn to read and write but considered this the role of scribes or servants. Then came the printing press, then the typewriter, then the word processor, and now here we are with computer.
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By the way, those questions of the census' 'Do you read and write?' don't mean that the person was fluent or actually read much. Being able to sign your name might be enough to indicate that the answer should be yes. Remember that census may be the backbone of American genealogy but there can be misinformation on it. To this day no one is hooking you up to a lie detector or asking you to put your hand on the Bible when you answer the enumerator's questions. (And your landlord or neighbor may be the one reporting and not know what they are talking about!)
Unlike today in the United States, when we have education that is provided free and the majority stay in school through twelve years of education, back in the day it wasn't at all uncommon for children, especially children in agricultural regions where they actually worked from a very young age, to not go to school at all. Even a third-grade education was sometimes considered enough. The child would learn the basics of reading and arithmetic (math) and it was up to them to pursue advancing their knowledge in these basics by using what was taught. We had child labor, even in the coal mines. Even in the 20th century, some people made it through the eighth grade and then went to work, into service, Becoming a live in nanny or a maid was considered good training for a girl who would become a wife and mother. Others quit high school to go to work and help support the family.
Another aspect of education that is culturally significant for many of us is that there was a system of apprenticeships and trade guilds in place. A boy, usually not a girl though there were exceptions, would be taken underwing by other men, often his father or an uncle, to teach him the trade and a way to support himself and his future family. Now people who want to learn a trade go to a school and hope they can do an internship and then get paid employment for someone they are probably not related to. Factories took over so much production that was hands-on, such as leather work and the making of shoes, that there are not so many tradesmen left and the guilds have been replaced at best with Unionization.
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Surnames evolved and may not be consistant.
EXAMPLE
In Eastern Europe, Jewish people lived in their own religious culture, mixing with people of other ethnic people in the market, in commerce, and in other ways - certainly there were friendships - but generally returning to their own when it came to personal life and choices - such as in marriage and the practice of their religion. Within their culture, everyone who mattered was known to them, and the tradition was to identify a child by also mentioning the first name of their father or even simply using a nickname. So, your friend Izzy, formally Isaack, whose father was Yosef, back in the village in Poland, might go with the name Yosefowicz but in the United States go by Josephson...
It is common for us also to assume that 'Jewish" names are identifiable as German or German Jewish, but Jewish surnames were adapted by the country the person was living in, the dominant culture at the time. As an example, when some Jewish people left Southern Poland and went into Hungary, they Hungarian-ified their surnames. (And a note here that Sephardic Jews had surnames that are Spanish or Portuguese in origin.)
Sometimes taking on a surname had little to do with taking one of your own choice at all. Surnames were sold and paid for in some places - and there might not be an extended family agreement on the name. If you had the money, you might end up with generations of your family being able to use the surname Diamond, Sapphire, or Ruby, or if you were a tradesperson (i.e. what we call Blue Collar now) you might go with a surname that reflected your profession - some form of Carpenter or Weaver or Baker, but if you were poor, if you had no money, some person - an official maybe a snob - might give you one of the free surnames that reflected your poverty and lowly position in life. What a good reason to change your name upon coming to America!
Now that we know that we not only have to check the spelling for meaning, but also check the language for meaning, we might also realize that some people changed their names when they came to America for a new start. (The often repeated "changed at Ellis Island" is a myth both the official web site and I deny. I believe that individuals simply changed their own names for a variety of reasons, including ease, to put an end to the discrimination they had experienced in the Old Country, or to blend into the new culture.
Some people decided they just were not that into being Jewish anymore. I've met several researchers who found out someone in their heritage was Jewish along the way and without a DNA test which was surprising to them. Back in the day to be Jewish was to be Orthodox or Hassidic, not Reform, and sometimes a person just didn't feel so religious.
If you are doing Jewish research, you will also want to work with the Hebrew names granted children at birth, which are not the same as the public name the person used. If unable to read it yourself, you may need someone fluent in Hebrew to decode certain records and old tombstones with Hebrew letters on them often give up lots of good information. ***
This post is one of a series on the subject. Click on the tag Surname Help - AWG to get to the posts.
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*** A note here on my fairly recent Opinion piece about tombstone projects and allowing the dead and the alive relatives of dead people to rest in peace rather than have their information revealed on the Internet or in Databases.
