Americanization of Foreign Names

 When I first began to research my family history, I started with a branch on my mother's side of the tree. Her father's side of the family had been in the United States since the 1600s. They were Dutch. As I found records of births, marriages, deaths, etc. I found the name of an individual recorded using different spellings.

This was largely due to the fact that the people recording the name wrote the name phonetically. For example, I have relatives who were named Anneke. I often found the name written as Annetje, Annetie, Anneken, Annatje, Antje and Anna. The last spelling was the beginning of Anglicizing the Dutch names in America.

It was easy for me to guess at the various ways the Dutch names were Anglicized because I could witness the changes as they occurred in the written records in a given relative's lifetime. However, when I started to research my family history on my father's side, I did not have the luxury of watching names evolve as result of viewing the records because the records were not in the United States.

My great, great grandfather Americanized his Norwegian patronym after he arrived in the United States. That name became his surname in America. When I finally had access to Norwegian records, I looked for records of a Martin, son of Simon. I was wondering why no records would some up when I searched for Simon.

One day I was reading an article in a genealogical magazine about Scandinavian migration to America. The article discussed the letters in the various Scandinavian alphabets that do not exist in the American English alphabet and how the Scandinavian immigrants adapted the spelling of their names. From that aha moment, I was able to learn that Simon was the Americanization of Seming/Semming.

Just as I think that I've unlocked the secret of how one would Americanize one's name, I began to research my husband's family history. The branches of his family came to the United States from Poland and Russia. Since they were Jewish, they often arrived with Yiddish or Hebrew names. Trying to guess what the original names were for his relatives at the time they arrived in America has been a real challenge.

The challenge results from my not knowing how letters in the various alphabets of the Eastern European countries sound. It is difficult to try to guess how Frank might be the Amercian version of Ephraim or Froim. So I am trying to learn the sounds of letters of the Yiddish, Polish and Russian alphabets.

What's in a name?

Many immigrants to the United States modify their surnames after they arrive. And in some cases they even change their given name. In most instances, immigrants change names to make them sound more American. I saw this tendency in practice as early as the late 1660s in New York following the British take over of the Dutch colony.

I found the names spelled one way in the records of the Dutch Reformed Church and another way in the English civic records. For example, the Dutch names Teunis, Jacobus, Aefje and Engeltje were written, respectively, as Anthony, James, Eva and Angelica in the English records. The spelling of surnames also evolved as the colonists moved from one colony to the next. Most of the changes in the spelling of surnames in America came about because names were spelled phonetically.

As each wave of immigrants came to America, immigrants modified both the first and last name if it sounded too foreign. My grandmother's father and grandparents came from Norway. In Norway, the family was known as the following: Martin Semmingsen, Mari Amundsdatter, Andreas Martinson, Kari Martinsdatter and Karl Person. Within a few years of their arrival, they were called Martin Simonson, Mary Simonson, Andrew Simonson, Karen Peterson and Charley Peterson, respectively.

Sometimes immigrants would change their name because it was too hard for Americans to pronounce. After years of people mispronouncing his name, a friend of mine named Ashok shortened his first name to Ash. I see this practice extensively with the Vietnamese immigrants. Although most have not Americanized the surnname other than to spell it using the English alphabet, many Vietnamese immigrants have Americanized the given name.

My husband's ancestors came to the United States from Eastern Europe. Unlike my great-great grandfather who made his Norwegian name sound more American, my husband's ancestors in two instances changed the name all together. One side of his family changed the name from Moswz to Klaine, while another side changed the name from Sluszny to Ehrlich. We recently met a second cousin who had some inkling of how that name evolved.

Historically, most names, both first and last, have a meaning. Just do a Google or Yahoo search on your name and there is a very high likelihood that you will find the meaning and derivation of your name. Jack told us that Sluszny and Ehrlich mean the same thing, honest or honorable.

I spent a little time on Google and found that Ehrlich, a German name, does indeed mean honest or honorable. Sluszny, a Polish name, means correct. I happened to come across a similar name used in the Czech Republic, Slušný, that means proper, decent or correct. So I can perhaps see how my husband's grandfather and great uncle got Ehrlich from Sluszny. At this time, I do not know why the two of them changed their surname to a German version.

As I explained the result of my research to my husband, he told me that he could see why someone would like a surname that means honorable. He reminded me that we address judges and Congress people by the title, Honorable. As much as I can see why we would call a judge, the Honorable Judge so-and-so, I am not sure why we should give such a title to many of the people who hold political office.

Why Does One Change His or Her Name?

There is a belief that officials at Ellis Island changed people's names. That is simply not true because the officials at Ellis Island were given passenger lists prepared at the point of departure. It was the immigrant himself or herself who made the name change. It was often an attempt to make the name more pronounceable or more English sounding.

Changing one's name is not only a phenomenon of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but it also occurs in the periods preceding and succeeding that time. I found many instances from the 17th century forward of names having been changed. In the 17th and 18th centuries, names were often spelled phonetically. So it was not unusual to find a person's name recorded differently from document to document. The phonetical spelling varied with the nationality of the person recording the event. So for example, I might find a resident of New Amsterdam recorded with a Dutch spelling of the name and that same individual as a resident of British New York with a different but similar spelling of the name.

As my family moved from New York City to other parts of the colony and to other colonies, the surnames was spelled in six if not more different ways. As people were themselves recording their name, they took on the various spellings of the name. In some cases, the individual simply gave into how others were writing his or her name. I have an Indian friend who changed his name because he got tired of people not being able to pronounce it or because when he was asked to spell it, the person just could not get it.

I have other friends who made a name change because they did not like the name that was given to them. You can find many instances in which a person chooses to use a middle name or just the initials because to that person it sounds better, more professional, or for whatever reason.

Interesting Connections - Where My Research Takes Me

While I was trying to find more information about Patrick Bowen Collins who married a distance cousin, I came across a book, "To Wire the World: Perry M. Collins and the North Pacific Telegraph Expedition." It was written by John B. Dwyer in 2001. Fortunately, I found it in the Sunnyvale Library and checked it out to read.

Perry McDonough Collins had a dream of building a telegraph system that connected the United States with Europe via Alaska and Russia. The book tells the story of his efforts to make this dream come true. In 1860, he wrote a book entitled "A Voyage Down the Amoor: with A Land Journey through Siberia and Incidental Notices of Manchooria, Kamschatka and Japan." Although his book was focused on the eastern part of the Russian Empire, it made me think about my husband's ancestors who were from eastern Russia.

Less than 40 years later, my husband's family begins to arrive in the United States. One of the stories I heard from his family was how the name was changed at Ellis Island. Actually, the story is rather compelling. My mother-in-law believes the name was changed because of confusion due to a language barrier between the immigration official and his great grandmother when she arrived along with his grandfather, his great uncle and his great aunt.

My husband's family name is Kline. The family seemed to believe that my husband's great grandmother was confused when the official asked for a surname that he was asking about the children. She supposedly answered with a question, "Eine Kleine?" from which the official recorded the name as Kline.

Based on his great aunt's naturalization papers, it appears that the family name was Moffs. However, I could not find any Russian name of Moffs. When I saw a copy of her application, I realized that she was young enough that she may not have known how to spell her family name when she came to America with her mother and brothers. She spelled the name phonetically from her childhood memory.

Further research, revealed that the family did not come through Ellis Island but entered at the Port of Boston. I do not know why the family chose a surname of Kline, but the census records around Boston from around the time the family arrived in the US include Claine, Clain and Kline as a spelling of the surname. Looking at the various census images that included the family, I was able to pinpoint the time in which my husband's grandfather arrived with his mother, brother and sister.

I ultimately found the image of the ship manifest that had the names of my husband's great grandmother, his grandfather, his great uncle and his great aunt. The name on the manifest was Mowsz.