I traced my last name back to when Prussia existed just before the divide. Did most names change @ immigration?

I'm very curious to know its origin and don't know how to go about this. Is Prussian the same as German? My name has an -aus spelling in the middle of it, and it sounds German to me and to most people, yet someone living in Germany said they never heard it and that it is possible that it's Lithuanian or that it had a more German spelling and was just shortened at the time of immigration to America. Thanks!I traced my last name back to when Prussia existed just before the divide. Did most names change @ immigration?
Though I don't know much about Prussia, I do know it encompassed a large area at one time and though it was 'officially' German, there were a lot of Poles, Lithuanians and others living there. You'd really have to read as much as you can about Prussia and see if there's a history of people having to change their names there at the time. They may have made people use a German spelling of a Polish or Lithuanian name.



For example, I have ethnic Slovak ancestors who were living in the Kingdom of Hungary which became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They were Catholic so at first they showed up in old church records with the Latin spellings of their names. In the 1800's, they underwent 'Magyarization' where the Hungarians basically forced them to lose their Slovak culture and become 100% Hungarian. On paper, my Slovak ancestors became Hungarians.

When they came to the US, my ancestors chose to use the original Slovak spelling of the their names. They had cousins who came over at the same time who chose to use the Hungarian spelling. One relative Americanized the Hungarian version and shortened it. Another chose a common English last name which was similar to the Slovak spelling.

We aren't actually Hungarian but without knowing the history of the region and other details about my family, you'd assume we were based on certain records.I traced my last name back to when Prussia existed just before the divide. Did most names change @ immigration?
Many who immigrated to the US shortened or Americanized their name in order to fit in quicker. My great great grandfather took a while to settle on which name he liked, so one census has one name and the next has the one he finally used.



You could post the name of your immigrating ancestor and someone may be able to help.
You are probably aware that Germany consisted of many smaller states Prussia, Bohemia, Hanova and others that I can't remember also, many years ago when people migrated to the US, Australia and other countries when they arrived at the country some of the officials were not so well educated and when a migrant gave their name, the immigration clerk could not spell the name and wrote it as they thought it would be spelt consequently, the spelling of names changed. e.g. Many Scots with a Mac ended up with the Irish Mc.
Because your ancestor was from Prussia it is possible that he was Polish, or Lithuanian it is also possibly that it was Anglicised.

Shortening was less common but spelling the name phonetically using English pronunciation was more common.