Until about 5 generations ago, Ewes did not have surnames, only given names attached to their clans.
So people were either called "Dela of the XXX" clan or by their nicknames aka "ahanoŋkɔwo"
The nicknames were quite interesting https://twitter.com/kadi_akb/status/1171689524998660101">https://twitter.com/kadi_akb/...

eg: there& #39;s the story of a carpenter who kept delay people& #39;s orders and anytime people asked him about their orders he would say "Ŋku nyɛ lɛ ŋu" so his nickname became "Nkulɛŋu".
People would then refer to people& #39;s kids by their fathers nicknames until those kids had their own

When kids started attending missionary schools their were required to have a Western name, their local names and a surname.
The clan name was no good as a surname as everyone in the class would usually have the same clan names.

What the teachers did was they would use the parents nicknames as the child& #39;s surname since the nicknames were unique to most nuclear families.

This is why most Ewe surnames have interesting meaning.

#EweHistory

PS: Ahanoŋkowo means "Drinking names" basically the names your drinking buddies call you.
Some of them nicknames were whole proverbs, that got shortened as surnames by the teachers, to one random word from the proverb

PS: "Ŋku nyɛ lɛ ŋu" means "I& #39;ve not forgotten" (from 2nd tweet in this thread)