Quote Originally Posted by Barmaley
Consider a scenario in which a person in what was then the Louisiana territory in the US would have been named de la Francais, but adopted de la Francia in order to be more "localized" (in this case, to appeal to the Spanish speaking Mexican authorities in Texas). He didn't adopt Frank/Frankman/Frankwhatever. Again, maybe I'm completely off base, but that was just a theory...
This seems quite plausible.