Comment by perl4ever

"the pencil-making family that had been Schmidt ("smith") became Faber"

It's interesting to consider how many common names are forms of "Smith" that an English speaker might not recognize. I've idly imagined writing a story where all the characters' last names are some variation on Smith.

For instance:

  Ferraro
  Haddad
  Kovács
  Kowalski
  Herrero
  Kuznets