BS”D
Mazal, right you are – I have many distant relatives who are Moroccan and Turkish because my maternal ancestors went in 2 different directions after girush Sefarad. My direct ancestors went West; other members of the family went to Morocco and the Ottoman Empire.
I have met quite a number of these lost relatives; the giveaway is that the person or a close relative shares my first name together with the surname of the grandfather A”H whom I was named for. When I went to one of the kivrei tzadikim in rural Morocco, I found a beis almin full of matzevos bearing my mother’s maiden name.
We are from Malchus Beis Dovid and one of these long lost distant relatives (a bochur from E”Y of Turkish origin whose information I took while I was volunteering at a blood drive) informed me that there is an association of people bearing this surname and that indeed we are to be found throughout the Jewish world.
The Alter Rebbe (Baal HaTanya) was of Sefardi origin (as may well be the very name Schneour Zalman); on Sunday when I have time I could probably post quite a few distinguished “Ashkenazi” surnames which originate in the Spanish language and were brought from Spain.