This is really just an enquiry into how people feel about this topic - I've got no real idea what's accepted as normal black thinking on this or whatever. SURNAMES - now for most people in the world these come from just 3 things as far as I can see - the job your ancestor did, the name of where you came from and the name of your father - but with african americans there's a fourth way and maybe (?) the only way which is the name of the people who thought they owned your family way back - now because I'm as Obama would say a mutt my real full name is like quite long - its a whole load of Italian with an english name stuck on the end - now that english name is the name of the people in Georgia who were holding my grandpa's family prisoner - so in no way is it really my name and the more I come to know about what went on back in those days the less appropriate it seems to have that persons name on my passports, drivers licence etc etc. Does anyone else have that feeling? If so what do you do about it? - like I could just use my mother's Italian surname, but if you're all black that's not an option. Or do people think its good to keep those names for some reason?