4 ms·
Oh well, if you take a closer look, you will find why: most if not all of those with surnames look weird in English are immigrants or descendants of immigrants
by mrjin 5y ago
Oh well, if you take a closer look, you will find why: most if not all of those with surnames look weird in English are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from a non-English speaking background. When they/their ancestors arrived, they most likely do not speak English at all or might be a couple of words, some of them might not even have a surname. When they arrived at the customs, they for sure needed something English on their papers. It would make sense to take what ever came to their mind at that moment as their surname.
Such things can be observed in every English speaking countries I would say. As those surnames were actually picked randomly, and when they/their descendants moved again, they most likely carried that randomly chosen surname with them. And now it becomes quirks that lots of surnames of different spellings are actually exactly the same in their origin. Lots of descendants of immigrants no longer neither can read or write in their own language but English, some might be either able to read or write but hardly anyone can do both.
- hereforonep 5y agoNo , there are many surnames with multiple spellings in their native language. See e.g Danish Skov Skou Skog etc etc
- liversage 5y agoA famous case of this is the Danish man Victor Cornelins that was born in St. Croix but at the age of seven was brought to Denmark to become part of a human exhibition as a "negro kid" to attract visitors. His birth name was Cornelius which is not unusual in Danish so Cornelins must have been a simple writing mistake. However, this lapse is negligible compared to the racism he was subjected to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Cornelins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Cornelins
- forehanddev 5y agoThis particular problem, of matching misspelled immigrant surnames was the reason for development of phonetic matching algorithms. See https://stevemorse.org/phonetics/bmpm2.htm https://stevemorse.org/phonetics/bmpm2.htm
- cwmma 5y agoThere are plenty native English surnames that came about before spellings standardized leading to (in the case of my own) Metcalf, Metcalfe, Medcalfe, Medcalf, Midcalfe, Midcalf all being the same name. So even immigrants coming from places that have surnames can have lots of variety before taking into account there isn't always a single best way to write a name in the Latin script.
- pessimizer 5y ago> It would make sense to take what ever came to their mind at that moment as their surname. Or whatever was the first thing that came to the mind of the clerk that was filling out the papers. I know a guy whose family name became "Bohunk" at Ellis Island.
- mbg721 5y agoSome surnames that look weird in English happened because there was a word in one language being written with another language's spelling assumptions. (Mine is one that works like that.)