I logged an old character level 55 and his surname is not there. Is there a way to make Surnames appear or vanish? His title is there, just not surname.

Do you see other peoples surnames while looking out from that character? You may have set /shownames to a non-default level. Just type /shownames to see the instructions, I think /shownames 2 is normal.

If it's just that toon's surname that isnt there, then it mighta got nuked by a gm for some reason... you can always just type /surname < lastname> to get it back.

Is he /anon?

I logged an old character level 55 and his surname is not there. Is there a way to make Surnames appear or vanish? His title is there, just not surname.

/showname 1

That will display only first names.