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Comment by tetris11 | Hacker News Reader

> tentmaking

For anyone wondering

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tentmaking

> ... in which missionaries support themselves by working full-time in the marketplace with their skills and education, instead of receiving financial support from a Church.

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Just to be clear, Paul literally made tents. The meaning of "tentmaking" that you quote came later by analogy with Paul.

I guess I'm just wondering where the profession disappeared in the general sense of surnames. You've got Smith, Tailor, Fletcher, etc.

I feel like if tent-making was such a prevalent profession, there'd be name derivatives from it

Professional surnames tend to reflect trades that were common when surnames were introduced to a culture. In English, that means ~1066. In Turkey, that means 1934. For whatever reason, there doesn't seem to have been a lot of tentmakers that established family names in England during the Norman Conquest. Not so in other places, though:

The Arabic surnames Kheyyam/Khayam/Khayami are all derived from the word for tent maker, Plachta is Polish, but more closely aligns with canvas-maker, mostly sails. And then theres Zeltman, which is German for tent man (which is ambiguous between "man who sells tents" and "man who lives in a tent")

super interesting context, thank you!

> And then theres Zeltman, which is German for tent man (which is ambiguous between "man who sells tents" and "man who lives in a tent")

likely a bit of both!

And you know this how?

https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/skenopoios

"some translate more generally: leather worker"

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