Re: How popular is your last name?
Amusingly, my surname Hauptman is 16219 in ranking, but if I use the proper Slavic feminine form, Hauptmanova, it is non existent on this particular list.
I want to change it to the Slavic form, so I can get native German speakers off my back about the "wrong" pronunciation.
It will also enable me to dodge the "Hauptman Society of America," who keep listing me as a member, despite the fact my dad, who was Czech, only emigrated to the US in the 1950s. The ancestry these guys are listing is for the descendants of a Hessian soldier who deserted during the American Revolution.
I used to get VERY strange phone calls from people looking into a society listing guide, including one who went BALLISTIC when I told him I was NOT his girlfriend; he started screaming obscenities, that I was LYING to him! I finally wrote the society a very nasty letter, on top of polite ones I had already sent, to get them to stop trying to contact me or add me to their family registry. They did not appreciate the threat of legal action.
http://www.pbs.org/cgi-registry/pov/...t?name=johnson
. Bah, off to bed as well...
