Is that the real reason why they changed last names, to **** with immigrants? That's messed up. They should just legally change it back now if they wanted to.Why did the authorities at Ellis Island change people's last names?
I doubt that I'm really saying any more than have others but knew people whose names were changed, most of those reasons have been mentioned here.
The times and situations differ, but many of those who came from Europe were unable to speak English and many of the Immigration Officers didn't speak enough languages either. There were many immigrants who had very heavy accents, these had a profound effect that has lasted to this day, influencing the different parts of New York into nearly dialectically different ways of talking. That's a carryover of what happened at Ellis Island.
Imagine thousands of people lining up to go through the gates with only a handful of officials to guide them through, to screen them, to give them a once over and decide if they were healthy...........it was organized chaos, almost a miracle that it was ever accomplished.
So names getting changed was unimportant to these folks, they were provided with their ';papers'; and had already gone through so much just to get here that the name on the identity papers was the least of their problems.
One family that I knew came over at the time of the Russian Revolution, Mitzel became Mitchell. Another, Trepilovsky became Trepel.......Gedyarevitch became Geddes and so on.
There was nothing ulterior or sinister about any of this, all of these folks were eventually to raise sons and daughters who are now the backbone of America.Why did the authorities at Ellis Island change people's last names?
my ancestors didn't have to change theirs.
Many spoke different languages.They spelled the names according to phonics or shortened them to save time.
My ancestors kept our family name,I wonder if you watch to much tv?
Some changed last names so that they were easier to pronounce.
it was the way the immigrant said their names. a lot of people who came here couldn't speak good English. don't worry, it happened to my grandfather during the census reports in 1930. it is not because they are jeoulas or stuped. if people would clean the crap out of their mouths so some one can understand them. then they would have had the name spelled right. the sapranos is just a stuped show.
Mine is a common name spelled in the same odd way that great-great-grandfather spelled it when he was still in the old country. If the Ellis Island folks would have wanted to change it, common sense says they would have changed it to the 'normal' spelling. But they spelled it exactly the way he did, and we all still do.
Most Ellis Island officials didn't change immigrants' surnames. Many immigrants changed their own names. Sometimes the names just evolved because of common misuse. In my own family, the spelling of our surnames changed over the years. I have a Dutch ancestor named Van Essylstein. Over the years the name has mutated from Van Essylstein or Van Asseltine to Asseltine to Aseltine to what it is now - Azeltine.
Occasionally, though, Ellis Island changed last names. Most of the time it was a simple spelling error, usually based on how the name sounded phonetically.
It's not just at Ellis Island - when you become a citizen, you have to option to legally change your name. Some people change their last name to be more pronounceable, and even more people add an English name they use as their alternate first name.
Though I'm sure it happened occasionally, name changes were only supposed to happen with consent, and I really don't see the problem with that.
Many of the people that passed through Ellis Island were illiterate even in their native language. So even they didn't know how to spell their names. But the immigration bureaucrats -- having to keep the blanks filled on their official admission forms -- would muddle through the language barrier and write down what they thought the new arrivals were telling them. Then that first form was presented to other officials down the line as their family name. The reasons for mistakes were usually from communication problems rather than any malicious intent.
Language problems, neither spoke each others tongue.
Overwhelming volume of people to be processed.
Misunderstanding of the pronunciation.
Maybe immigarion officers trying to help, by Americanising their names.
Maybe sadistic immigration officers treating them like dirt
I had a friend whose last name was Kim. When he became a US citizen the authorities, by the way my friend pronounced his name, thought he had said King. So from then on his last name has been King. He doesn't mind; sounds more American. I think it is just the way the officials who take the information hear it.
some names were difficult to pronounce
mine kept theirs also they kept immigrants quarantined till they made sure they were well
No, that was not the reason. The real answer is that the officials were screening immigrants from not only Italy but from many other nations as well. Mostly Eastern European nations along with Russian, Jewish, and later the Irish along with many Nordic nations.
The names were not familiar to the usually undereducated officials on Ellis Island. As you will remember, most of the US at that time had names like Smith, Taylor, Windsmith and the like. For the sake of arguement, they were mostly easily prounounced and spelled.
Imagine, then, a wave of immigrants being processed by the thousands each day with very few of them able to speak English.
Well, everyone had to have a name of somekind and since the officials could neither communicate with the immigrant, spell nor pronounce the foreign names like Fedorovovich, Majhnersiks, or Slodolvykski, the immigrants were simply renamed as Feder, Mann, and Sodol respectivlely.
Hope this will help.
Most of the time they probably did not, certainly not intentionally.
Many times they first got the name from a hand written ship's manifest, then it was pronounced by the immigrant in their native accent, and misunderstood by an over worked Immigration agent.
We have no clear idea of our actual last name, as my great Grandfathers signature on his Citizenship papers, (We assimilated, how's THAT for a novel idea) is poorly written, and it could be taken for several popular versions of a name in the old country.
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