Board Thread:Character Discussion/@comment-34924658-20161007024033/@comment-31749935-20170415215350

DatNuttyKid wrote: In the past, by my (admittedly weak) understanding, surnames only existed for the sake of family pride to make sure that ancestors are always remembered. Cora is obviously a very prideful woman, so she would take a last name so that her children would always be known as the children of Cora Mills/Miller. The Lucas family also appears to be pretty well off, so they would reasonably have a surname as well.

Rumplestiltskin, on the other hand, is the child of a scoundrel. There's no family pride there, and he certainly would not want to take a name that would keep him attached to Malcolm for his entire life. Perhaps the spinsters, but even they seem to be rather poor. This.

HIstorically a lot of peasant classes wouldn't have surnames, they would just have their first name. When censuses became something that happened they would often write their occupation as their surname (i.e. Miller/Mills- works for Cora) Or their parents name (i.e. Johnson, Malcolmson) So, in the EF maybe they didn't bother with surnames because there presumably weren't any censuses. Rumplestiltskin would be his name, the same way Baelfire is his name. Snow White also has no surname, which goes against the theory of families with status having surnames, but this may be that we just don't know it because why would it ever be mentioned? She's the princess, so everybody would know who you were talking about without a surname being mentioned. They would call her Princess Snow White. If we think about royalty today we rarely know the surnames of Monarchs and their families because they're just referred to by their title and given names.