Origin of the Word Hooligan

Do you know the word “hooligan”? Yes, you know the word and you don’t like hooligans, of course.

But do you know that Hooligan was an English surname and not a word?

In 1890 in London there lived a man whose surname was Hooligan. He was a very bad man and he behaved so badly, that soon everybody in London knew him and talked about him.

When somebody began to behave badly, people said, “Oh, he behaves like Hooligan,” and a new word was born. You can find this word not only in English but in some other languages too.