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Question:

What's the origin of these surnames?

Coll(maybe scottish or english?) and Chang(sounds asian?)


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: One of the biggest problems with trying to trace the absolute starting point origin of a surname is that throughout history people have always migrated and resettled in other parts or other countries, taking their surnames with them. This can give rise to confusion later on, especially if the surname was re-spelled in a new language.

Another problem is that over the course of history languages have evolved, causing variants of the original name to arise. Thus a name that originated in one place may have evolved over time into the same form and spelling as a name originating in an entirely different time and place.

Consequently, I have found two equally possible very early origins of the surname Coll, one English and the other Irish. You would really need to do a history of the people involved to know which source the Coll surname you want to know about came from.

COLL - English
Variants include Col, Colle, Colls, Colles.
The earliest known origin of the surname Coll is Anglo-Saxon. It comes from the given name Nicholas. Coll was a popular diminuitive of Nicholas in the Middle Ages (5th - 15th Century AD). It was first found in Lincolnshire, where Colls had resided since ancient times (pre-5th Century AD). Immigration records show that some of the first immigrants from England to North America bore the name Coll or one of its variants e.g. Richard Colles arrived in Virginnia in 1640.

COLL - Irish
This is a Donegal name, Donegal being a County in the north-west of Ireland. It comes from MacColl which in Gaelic (native Irish language) is Mac Colla. (The word "mac" simply means "son of" and was applied to all the descendants of the original name.)
Colla was the name of a gallowglass family introduced into Donegal from Argyllshire in the sixteenth century AD. Colla was a Gaelic personal name and Colla Uais, a semi-legendary Irish king of the fourth century, is claimed as the great ancestor of the MacDonalds. The MacCalls or MacColls, long settled in Argyllshire, were of the race of Clan Donald.

CHANG
The 94th most common last name in China. There are three main origins to this last name:
1) The legendary ancient king Huang Di had two high ranking officials called Chang Yi and Chang Xian. Their descendents adopted Chang as their last name.
2) Descendents of the Ji family. During Chung Qiu, a descendent of Shu Kang, the duke of the Wei kingdom, was awarded the land of Chang, east of Weishan in Shandong. Its people adopted Chang as their last name.
3) To avoid having the same last name as the king Song Zhen Zhong, whose real name was Zhao Heng, some of the Heng family changed their last name to Chang, during the Song Dynasty.

Wikipedia also has a lot of info on the surname Chang. Its starting article, which I have listed below in sources, has three expanded articles with a load of further info in them.

Hope this helps.