What Ethnicity Would This Last Name Be?

Question

I'm an author and I've picked out a last name for my main character, but I don't know what ethnicity that the last name Goran would land under. Please help....

Answer 1

Croatian.

Answer 2

ancestry.com has a long list of places where persons with this name, actually come from. Ireland, Russia, England, even Norway. Those are actual persons.

Much to the surprise of most persons.. names don't always "belong" solely to any one background. Major roadblock, all the time, for new researchers.

You get to pick anywhere you want, for your character to come from, as long as it works for your book/story.  If you have a certain background in mind, you can pick a name that seems to be that "background".  If you were nice to us, you could make your character a researcher who finds out that what he/she THOUGHT his background is, turns out to be different than stereotyped.  I, for one, would be thrilled to see a shameless plug for accurate genealogy, sneak in the middle of a book.