Szabo - Meno

This is a Middle European and specifically Hungarian surname. It originates from the word 'szabo' meaning a tailor, and hence is medieval, occupational, and not surprisingly, quite popular. Occupational surnames were amongst the earliest to be created, since to call a person by his or her 'work' was perhaps the easiest form of recognition and identification. However in many countries such names did not become hereditary until a son or occasionally a daughter, followed a parent into the same line of business. If the son changed to something else, he would during the lifetime of the parent, be (sometimes) called both after his fathers and his own occupation! This could give rise to descriptive 'names', of which an example might have been "John, the tailor, son of William, the carpenter." With many Mid European surnames we have the problem that countries which came firstly under Nazi and then later under Communist control, intentionally destroyed early church records, to deliberately erase the history of the individual where it did not accord with current political thought, if such desecration can be so dignified. In this case we have been lucky in that some Hungarian registers have survived. Examples from these include Stephanus Szabo at Ludas, Heves, on August 28th 1858, and Franciscus Szabo Racz, at the same place, on January 3rd 1865.