Also, we never change them, even if the holder is not male.
They got "frozen" in most languages once written records got widespread enough that it became common to want to be able to cross-index registers and track family relationships. It varies by country, but often it coincides with the introduction of tax authority registers or other large national databases.
In Spanish, all the surnames ending in -ez also mean "son of". Even many Spanish speaking people don't know (or don't care? :)) about it, as they've been used as "normal" (sorry) surnames for long now.
Lopez: Son of Lope Rodriguez: Son of Rodrigo Perez: Son of Pedro Martínez: Son of Martín etc
I love when etymology pops up in random threads :)
Magnus Þórsson
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Baldur Magnusson
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Erik BaldurssonReference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_name#Female_surnames
After we were married, my wife's family name changed to 'match' my non-Latvian name, and our son got a different family name on his LV passport. e.g.
John Smith <-> Jana Smitha
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Josefs Smiths/Joseph Smith
We use the LV passports for primary ID, which sometimes causes some confusion when setting up family accouts etc. with non-passport-control staff.