Why did the Bloody White Baron Roman Fyodorovich von Ungern-Sternberg call himself Ungern von Sternberg?
Was he inspired by his fellow Baltic Germans, the Dukes of Courland, who despite being of very ancient nobility had the bourgeois-sounding surname Kettler. (Derived from their arms, which show a kettle hook. And Empress Anna Ivanovna can be said to have become Mrs. Kettler, when she married the Duke of Courland :-) Or lay the attraction for this self-proclaimed Dictator of Mongolia in the (erroneous) belief that "Ungern" indicated descent from Hungarians, at one time also an Eastern nomadic people? (Though most likely it's derived from a Baltic river.)
Or was he inspired by his family's Swedish past? In Sweden te name of titled family often have the form Title Surname of Place, e.g. Count Bonde af Björnö, Count Horn af Åminne, Baron De Geer af Finspång, Baron Gyllenhaal til Härlingstorp etc.
BTW a joke in Nazi Germany was that the anti-Semitic baron was ungern Sternberg, not to keen on being Sternberg (which was a typical Jewish surname).
