In an effort to confound genealogists, some men have adopted their bride's surname after marriage.
Joe Hickman né Cothman made the switch to "harmonize the new family and wipe the slate clean with the old."Bobbie Jeanne, whose last name is linked to a Sicilian castle, and who is one of a few dozen people with her last name left in the United States, didn't want to trade in her unusual last name for the most usual – Smith.
So Dayton, of Huntington Beach, checked with his father, who was raised in an orphanage, about whether it was OK for him to become a La Grua. His father, unsure at the time if Smith was his given last name, didn't mind.
Throughout high school, people always called Joe by his last name. So when he ran into an old buddy at a wedding recently, he had to correct his friend.
"He said, 'Hey, Cothman.' And I said, 'Actually, it's Hickman now.'
"He was like, 'Shut up.'" [Link]
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