Names

   The other day I was talking to a colleague in office and he had got a mail from another colleague to contact a person in India whose name is " 'name' P" and my colleague was confused as he thought that it was an incomplete name (since the surname was only an initial) as he did not know how to get in touch with " 'name' P". It was then that I explained to him that in South India, quite a few of us don't have surnames but only initials and told him that only when they travel outside the country would they have to expand their initial and that would become their surname.
   This conversation also interested a British colleague of ours and he was saying that in China there are very less surnames (possibly less than 99). Also, during the 1966 Soccer World Cup (I hate calling football as soccer but with American football taking over that name, I am forced to use this), that out of the 11 players of the South Korean soccer team, 9 or 10 of them had surnames as "Kim" (a very common South Korean surname).
   The conversation steered further to Britain and I found out from the British Colleague, that the surnames in Britain were based on occupation. For eg., all "Smiths" were once BlackSmiths and "Fletchers" were arrow makers.
   Coming to African Americans, people were speculating their surnames are based on the names of their owners (when the Blacks were slaves) and hence the names Jackson, Johnson etc. and very few of them retained their African names.
   In India, especially the north indians, how did they get their surnames? I guess it is mostly on caste (actually on occupation, as in those castes and occupations go hand in hand). Look at this wikipedia article about the origin of surnames in India. It is pretty iteresting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_name.
   Do you have a point of view on this? If so, please do share.