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Help[Opinions] Re: Anniston
in reply to a message by ari.
What do you mean by "relatively modern"? I am sure there are other examples of immigrants who have changed their names to something which actually hadn't been used as a surname before. Almost 40 years ago I knew a male gay couple in Michigan who both legally changed their surname to Stonewall in order to signal their commitment to each other before legal marriage was possible. Stonewall isn't listed in the surname dictionaries I own so I would suppose it was a "new" surname at that point.
About a sixth of the world's population still lives in cultures that do not use hereditary surnames. When people from those cultures immigrate to places where surnames are required, they have to adopt them. So there must be tens of thousands of examples of families originally from southern India and other non-surname cultures who have adopted them when they move to Europe or the Americas within the last couple of centuries.
Most sub-Saharan African cultures did not have hereditary surnames until the colonial powers required them to be adopted a century or so ago. I believe most African families took the given name of a recent male ancestor as their family name. Obama was the given name of the 44th President of the USA's great-grandfather. I would think most families in Africa therefore have surnames of very recent origin.
About a sixth of the world's population still lives in cultures that do not use hereditary surnames. When people from those cultures immigrate to places where surnames are required, they have to adopt them. So there must be tens of thousands of examples of families originally from southern India and other non-surname cultures who have adopted them when they move to Europe or the Americas within the last couple of centuries.
Most sub-Saharan African cultures did not have hereditary surnames until the colonial powers required them to be adopted a century or so ago. I believe most African families took the given name of a recent male ancestor as their family name. Obama was the given name of the 44th President of the USA's great-grandfather. I would think most families in Africa therefore have surnames of very recent origin.
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