>[snip]
>>Almost no people change their last names here in Argentina. But I don't see a point to that. How many times people pronounced or wrote your last name incorrectly.
>[snip]
>
>My last name is a story indeed. My father is Portugese-Jewish. The original name is De Valença. In 1806 it was changed to Valensa. In the seventies my father asked our queen to restore the original name, which was granted. But some of my brothers and my sister were already over 16 years and they wanted to keep it Valensa. So, now we are divided. There is also an American branch (who emigrated in the 19th century) named Valencia. There are days that I have to correct people several times. I somehow regret that my father asked for restoration. Valensa is much easier in the Netherlands.

Interesting. I have a similar situation. My dad was born here in Canada in Saskatchewan in an entirely Russian speaking community (his family came to Canada in the original Dukhobor migration). Our last name was actually Popov, which, from what I've been told, may be the single most common Russian surname. He didn't speak English until he started school, and to the day he died, he had a bit of a lingering Russian accent. Anyway, when he moved away from home to Winnipeg at the age of about 16, he got a job as a journalist, and he thought 'W' was pronounced as 'V', so he wrote the name as Popow, and that's what it's been ever since. Although he did get letters addressed to Nick Popov, and to Nick Popoff. My mother should have been Popova, but I guess not Popowa. Anyway, being Jewish, she didn't see any point in feminising her last name anyway.