Smith
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Smith can refer to a person who practices smithing, to a very common family name or to part of a place name or location.
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Smithing
A smith or metalsmith is a person involved in the shaping of metal objects. The traditional working place for a smith is a forge or smithy. There are many different kinds of smiths:
- A coppersmith or brownsmith works with copper.
- A blacksmith works with iron and steel.
- A goldsmith works with gold.
- A gunsmith works with guns.
- A locksmith works with locks.
- A silversmith or brightsmith works with silver.
- A tinsmith or whitesmith works with tin ("white iron").
- A pewtersmith works with pewter
- The word whitesmith can also refer to someone who polishes or finishes metal as opposed to forging it.
In pre-industrialized times, a smith was a person of high or special social standing, as he would supply the metal tools needed for efficient farming (especially the plough).
The word smith is cognate with the somewhat archaic English (Germanic) word smite, meaning to hit or strike. Originally smiths practiced their crafts by forming metal with hammer blows. In this sense, the English word predates the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain.
See also Category:Smiths
Family name
Smith as a surname is a common family name amongst those of English descent. Moreover, it was often taken by non-English immigrants in order to blend into the majority culture more easily. It is consequently the most common surname in both the United States, comprising more than 1% of the population counted during the 1990 census, and the United Kingdom.
Names with disambiguation pages:
- Adam Smith
- Chris Smith
- David Smith
- Donald Smith
- Edward Smith (VC)
- George Smith
- Harry Smith
- Ian Smith
- Jack Smith
- James Smith
- John Smith – regarded as the most common name in England
- Michael Smith
- Paul Smith
- Richard Smith
- Robert Smith (includes Bob Smith)
- Samuel Smith
- Steven Smith
- Thomas Smith and Tom Smith
- William Smith
The character Agent Smith from the Matrix trilogy also uses the ubiquitous name.
- Zacharias Smith is a character in the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling
International use
In other languages cognates to English "smith" tend to be very popular family names too:
- Schmidt, Schmitt or Schmied in German
- Kowalski, Kowal in Polish
- Kalejs in Latvian
- Kovac in Serbo-Croatian languages
- Fabbri, Fabris, Ferrari in Italian
- Faber is the Latin term for smith, found as a surname in several European languages.
- Sepp in Estonian
Place names and locations
Smith is a common part of a place name or locations, particularly in the United States of America.
- Deaf Smith County, Texas
- Fort Smith, Arkansas
- Fort Smith, Montana
- Redbird Smith, Oklahoma
- Smith Center, Kansas
- Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts
- Smith County, Kansas
- Smith County, Mississippi
- Smith County, Tennessee
- Smith County, Texas
- Smith Island, Maryland
- Smith Islands National Park in Queensland, Australia
- Smith Mills, Massachusetts
- Smith River in western USA
- Smith Township, Pennsylvania
- Smith Valley, Nevada
- Smith Village, Oklahoma
- Smiths Station, Alabama
See also:
Other uses of "smith"
- Alias Smith and Jones was a 1970s television comedy series on ABC.
- Alas Smith and Jones was a 1980s television comedy sketch series shown on BBC. (Its name was a pun on that of Alias Smith and Jones.)
- The Smiths were an English rock band.
- Smith & Wesson, a manufacturer of handguns
- W H Smith, a high street chain of bookshops in the United Kingdom
- Smith is a 1932 novel by Warwick Deeping.
- Smith was a 1960s American rock band based out of St. Louis, Missouri.
Other languages
- Schmidt – German
- Haddad – Arabic