4 ms·

Someone with the last name Blank told me their family lore was that the (Ellis island era) immigration paperwork person just gave up.

smt88 2y ago
“Name changed by staff at Ellis Island” is a myth. Some people, including many Eastern Europeans, did change their own names to make their ethnicity less obvious or to shorten the name (Schwarzenegger => Schwarz, Stein => Stone, etc.)
- nemomarx 2y ago
  Certainly we could rule it out as a widespread normal practice, but transcription errors or spelling changes would happen, right? Especially from languages that have letters that don't exist in English.
  - pavel_lishin 2y ago
    Yeah, I can't imagine that a lot of Russian or Polish immigrants - who wouldn't have spoken English - would have had any idea how to consistently transliterate their last names. How do you transliterate Жижщенко? Anything with a ё in it? Or an ы, or й? Was there a policy on differentiating between "е" and "э"?
    - smt88 2y ago
      The transliteration was done by the passengers themselves, by the shipping company that transported the passengers, or by interpreters at Ellis Island. While many of these immigrants wouldn't have been fluent in English, they still would have had access in their home countries or through the shipping company to someone bilingual who knew English as well. It's not like English was some incredibly inaccessible language to someone in Poland or Russia.
    - matsemann 2y ago
      Is there even a consistent way to do it in a language? The Russian chess player Ian Nepomniachtchi is called Jan Nepomnjasjtsjij in Norwegian for instance. Must be so many ways to do it.
      - arrowsmith 2y ago
        Depends. Some non-Latin scripts (eg Greek) have standardised transliteration schemes. Others (eg Arabic) have no clear standard, so the transliterations are wildly inconsistent.
  - smt88 2y ago
    > rule it out as a widespread normal practice That's the part that's a myth: that it was widespread or normal. Of course small errors would happen. But the main reason it didn't happen frequently is that employees at Ellis Island weren't even recording anyone's name. They were just checking them against manifests that were written elsewhere. And when passengers were consulted about immigration-related issues, it was through an interpreter who would know the script and language of the arriving passenger. More info: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/07/02/name-changes-ellis-island https://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/07/02/name-changes-ellis-isla...
    - arrowsmith 2y ago
      I know it's a myth, but I wonder: did the myth become widespread because of the scene in The Godfather Part II where Vito changes his name to Corleone at Ellis Island? Or was the myth already widespread, and the moviemakers got the idea from the myth?
pavel_lishin 2y ago
I have a relative in the hospital with a fairly long Russian name. The staff can all be sorted into either the "not even gonna try" category, or the "let me practice my Russian pronunciation while I walk with you down this hallway" category.

smt88 2y ago

“Name changed by staff at Ellis Island” is a myth. Some people, including many Eastern Europeans, did change their own names to make their ethnicity less obvious or to shorten the name (Schwarzenegger => Schwarz, Stein => Stone, etc.)

nemomarx 2y ago
Certainly we could rule it out as a widespread normal practice, but transcription errors or spelling changes would happen, right? Especially from languages that have letters that don't exist in English.
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  Yeah, I can't imagine that a lot of Russian or Polish immigrants - who wouldn't have spoken English - would have had any idea how to consistently transliterate their last names. How do you transliterate Жижщенко? Anything with a ё in it? Or an ы, or й? Was there a policy on differentiating between "е" and "э"?
  - smt88 2y ago
    The transliteration was done by the passengers themselves, by the shipping company that transported the passengers, or by interpreters at Ellis Island. While many of these immigrants wouldn't have been fluent in English, they still would have had access in their home countries or through the shipping company to someone bilingual who knew English as well. It's not like English was some incredibly inaccessible language to someone in Poland or Russia.
  - matsemann 2y ago
    Is there even a consistent way to do it in a language? The Russian chess player Ian Nepomniachtchi is called Jan Nepomnjasjtsjij in Norwegian for instance. Must be so many ways to do it.
    - arrowsmith 2y ago
      Depends. Some non-Latin scripts (eg Greek) have standardised transliteration schemes. Others (eg Arabic) have no clear standard, so the transliterations are wildly inconsistent.
- smt88 2y ago
  > rule it out as a widespread normal practice That's the part that's a myth: that it was widespread or normal. Of course small errors would happen. But the main reason it didn't happen frequently is that employees at Ellis Island weren't even recording anyone's name. They were just checking them against manifests that were written elsewhere. And when passengers were consulted about immigration-related issues, it was through an interpreter who would know the script and language of the arriving passenger. More info: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/07/02/name-changes-ellis-island https://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/07/02/name-changes-ellis-isla...
  - arrowsmith 2y ago
    I know it's a myth, but I wonder: did the myth become widespread because of the scene in The Godfather Part II where Vito changes his name to Corleone at Ellis Island? Or was the myth already widespread, and the moviemakers got the idea from the myth?

pavel_lishin 2y ago

I have a relative in the hospital with a fairly long Russian name. The staff can all be sorted into either the "not even gonna try" category, or the "let me practice my Russian pronunciation while I walk with you down this hallway" category.