Hello. I need some surnames that are common for white south Africans and Zimbabweans of British ancestry for an important character in my novel. It'd help if the name is easy to pronounce and not very long.
Assuming he is of british ancestry, then really any normal british name will suffice. South Africa also had a population of boers (related to dutch), so the family or first name may be influenced or originating from this (e.g Hans Haughton, or Willian David Van Der Waals) there is a number of name generators that can give you ideas. But surname based on first names like Lawrence, Murray, Winston, Rodgers, Johnstone, Hammond, etc... where quite common. Then there is also the tradition of deriving the name directly from the father's name (or mother's name if female) like "Johnson, Robertson, etc..." these too were and still are quite common. I'm not entirely sure about Zimbabwean/africanlast names to be honest though. But still, you could have fun and making some new ones by adapting existing african (in my example I used Shona names) first names or last name. For example: Farai could be Farray, Mudiwa could become Muddyway (could be for comic effect maybe?), Garai could become Garray, Watai could become Wattay. These is just really random names I quickly came up with. Alternatively, you could have english-version of dutch names (or dutch names written as-is in english). E.g: Van Der Waals could become bastardised in english as Vanderwall. Johannes could becomes Johnnes) Hope this helps...
Look up census data from around the time your characters' ancestors left Britain, and pick a name you like.
I'd second @Tenderiser 's recommendation—with one caveat. If you tie your characters directly to the emigrant ancestor of a family that exists, be careful not to portray that ancestor unfairly. If your characters are totally fictitious, it might be a better idea to check the census, then come up with a similar name (Jones instead of Smith?) ...especially if you're going to directly reference the ancestor. That way no feathers get unnecessarily ruffled.
