In US and Canada you have to keep the name of your father in his passport.
Not only there. In Western Europe as well. Only if you don't know the name of the father, you can use your mom's maidenname if she doesn't carry her husband's name.
I think the sex-related endings of last names -i and -a are a typical phenomaena in Slavic languaged countries. In Czech they add with every woman -va at her last name, I heard even when it's a foreign celebrity. Jennifer Lopez would become Jennifer Lopezova. :) At least, that's what my Czech and Slovak friends tell me.
I haven't seen it in any of the Germanic languaged countries, with the exception of Iceland where they differenciate between -dottir and -son for a daughter and a son. Can't remember if the last name is also sex-related as where it concerns the composition of it, for example if a girl would take her mom's first name, add "dottir" to it and the son takes his father's first name and add "son" to it, so you would get Peter Svensson, who would be the brother of Ingrid Gudrunsdottier. Indeed, brother and sister can have complete different last names and different from their parents names and even different from their kid's names.
In short: Sven Petersson and Gudrun Monikadottir have two kids, named Peter Svensson and Ingrid Gudrunsdottir and one grandchild: Jacob Petersson. I wouldn't want to be a postman in Iceland :)
As for Jewish names, "Polak", "Cohen" and "Grunberg" are the most common Jewish last names in NL.
>^..^<
M-G (loves Iceland though)