I wonder how many surnames there are that are the same as country names?
The last name Canada derives from the Middle English "cane", a development of the Old French "cane", meaning cane, reed. Secondly, it may be a Norman locational name from the town of Caen, in Calvados, Normandy, named with the Gaulish elements "catu", battle, plus "magos" meaning field, plain.
The last name Ireland actually refers to "of Irish origins" and was an ethnic name for an immigrant from Ireland.
The last name France was an ethnic name for someone from France. The Surname DB says that the country was named from the Franks - the free men, a confederacy of German tribes.
The last name Cuba? Portuguese, Asturian-Leonese, Galician, and Spanish: habitational name from any of the places in Portugal (in the provinces of Alentejo and Beira Baixa) or Spain (in Aragon, Asturies, and Galicia) named Cuba, from cuba 'barrel' (from Latin cupa). Variant spelling of Kuba.
The last name America? This is not a happy retrieval - the retrievals want to list the common surnames in America. The Surname DB has no entry at all. But ancestry.com has an answer:
You can see how America families moved over time by selecting different census years. The America family name was found in the USA, the UK, and Canada between 1840 and 1920. The most America families were found in the USA in 1880. In 1840 there was 1 America family living in Illinois. This was about 33% of all the recorded America's in the USA. Illinois and 1 other state had the highest population of America families in 1840.
Then to compare with how countries got their names.
Here is yesterday's progress on the multiple exposure technique.
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