A change of name is very common in the performing arts, Jim. Why persecute Bob Dylan over changing his? In any case, it seems that he chose the surname "Dillon" first (while still living in Minnesota), because he liked the sound of it, and he got the idea from Matt Dillon, the sherrif in the popular series "Gunsmoke". He later decided that it would look cooler to spell it "Dylan" instead, and I think he made a good choice there. So the link with Dylan Thomas was, if anything, an afterthought.

In any case, one doesn't swipe a surname. There is no copyright on surnames. One adopts a new surname if one so desires, and I see no reason why people can't legally change their names if they want to. It's their business....no one else's.

olliamh - Cultural genocide of the original Cuban inhabitants occurred a loooong time ago...during the early colonization of Cuba by the Spanish Empire. It was not orchestrated by Communists, and Cuba has NEVER been under a Stalinist system....Stalinism having been thoroughly discredited by the Russians themselves some time prior to Castro's successful revolution. I've been in Cuba in recent years, and I have never witnessed a society with a greater and more natural sense of racial and cultural equality. They put most of the rest of the world to shame in that sense. It's the only place I've ever been where I had the very clear sense that Black people were seen as completely equal in every way to other people...nobody even focused on them being "Black". It was Castro's revolution that brought about that change in attitude. Before Castro there was deep racial inequality in Cuba, gross exploitation of poor people, rampant crime, casinos, Mafia, whorehouses...a playground for rich American crooks and businessmen. Castro was the best thing that ever happened to that island.