What’s in a name? – Researching and presenting the origins of surnames of people in the school

In this activity, students research the origins of surnames of people in the school.
They then narrow this down to the names which originate from occupations, and present each of these in a PowerPoint slide with an accompanying image.
These are then printed off and arranged through discussion into a ‘Diamond9’ diagram with the most ‘high status’ jobs towards the top, and the ‘low status’ jobs towards the bottom.
This adds an interesting dimension to the investigation about “Was Life Good or Bad in the Middle Ages?”.