"I even considered Korean surnames (particularly "Park"), because Korean was a language isolate (cognates are the biggest sources of variant spellings, and lang

"I even considered Korean surnames (particularly "Park"), because Korean was a language isolate (cognates are the biggest sources of variant spellings, and language isolates have no cognates), all Korean surnames are monosyllabic, and I liked that it would totally mislead people as to my ethnicity, but I eventually rejected them." I taught at a university with a lot of students of Korean descent. I kept getting e-mails from one of my students whose last name was Park and answering them. I hadn't put a face to his name because I had large classes, but I'll admit I assumed he was Korean. One day he came to office hours and it turned out he was a white guy. So I can confirm that that would have successfully misled at least some people. I suspect "Lee" would have worked as well.