Family names

[AChimp]

A) Certain terms get combined over time, or people's speech slurs syllables together. (i.e. Goodbye = God be with you). Different cultures would end up combining syllables in different ways.

B) Different languages. Plain language terms like "short" would get translated into the local dialect.

C) Different spellings. When immigrants came to North America at the beginning of the 20th century, most of them couldn't read or write, so when they were asked their names, the dude filling out the form just wrote down how he thought it was spelled. Different dudes meant different spellings.