American Language (106 page)

1
London
Nation
, March 12, 1912. In Ch. XII the census returns of the foreign-born and of persons of foreign or mixed parentage are given.

2
The great Irish famine, which launched the chief emigration to America, extended from 1845 to 1847. The Know Nothing movement, which was chiefly aimed at the Irish, extended from 1852 to 1860.

3
Surnames in the United States,
American Mercury
, June, 1932, p. 228. Mr. Barker’s ingenious studies of American surnames have uncovered a great deal of new material, and are marked by wide knowledge and shrewd judgment. His principal work, National Stocks in the Population of the United States as Indicated by Surnames in the Census of 1790, is part of the Report of the Committee [of the American Council of Learned Societies] On Linguistic and National Stocks in the Population of the United States, printed by the Government Printing Office; Washington, 1932.

4
Our Leading Surnames, by Howard F. Barker,
American Speech
, June, 1926.

5
In the Borough of Brooklyn
Cohen
is actually in first place. See the New York
Times
, Feb. 28, 1933. The count was made on a grant from the Emergency Unemployment Relief Committee.
Miller
was in third place, followed by
Brown
and
Jones
. In the 200-card set of guide-cards sold for office use only
Smith, Brown
and
Cohen
have cards of their own. Herbert Asbury says in All Around the Town; New York, 1934, p. 272, that the first New York City directory, published in 1786, showed the names of seven
Smiths
, one
Kelly
, and one
Brown
, but no
Cohen
.

6
For the 1913 ranking see the
World
Almanac for 1914, p. 668.

7
How We Got Our Surnames, by Howard F. Barker,
American Speech
, Oct., 1928, and How the American Changes His Name, by the same,
American Mercury
, Sept., 1935.

8
See The Name
Pershing
, by J. H. A. Lacher,
American Speech
, Aug., 1926, and
Pershing
Again, by the same,
American Speech
, May, 1927. Mr. Lacher tells me that there is no reason to believe that this
Stammvater Pfoersching
was an Alsatian, as the general appears to think. He arrived on Oct. 2, 1749 on the ship
Jacob
, Captain Adolph de Grove, from Amsterdam via Shields, England. It brought 290 passengers, and they were described as “from Swabia, Wirtemberg and Darmstadt.”

9
See The German Element in the United States, by A. B. Faust; New York, 1909, Vol. II, pp. 183–4. Now and then the story goes round that
Roosevelt
is a Jewish name, originally
Rossacampo
. The Rooseveltii, it is said, were expelled from Spain in 1620, and sought refuge in Holland, Germany and other Northern countries, where their surname was changed to
Rosenfeldt, Rosenbau, Rosenblum, Rosenvelt
and
Rosenthal
. In Holland it finally became
Roosevelt
, and all branches of the family save one were baptized. When this story was published in 1935, on the authority of Chase S. Osborn, former Governor of Michigan, the editor of the Detroit
Jewish Chronicle
applied to President Franklin D. Roosevelt for light. The President’s reply, dated March 7, 1935, was as follows: “All I know about the origin of the Roosevelt family in this country is that all branches bearing the name are apparently descended from Claes Martenssen Van Roosevelt, who came from Holland sometime before 1648 — even the year is uncertain. Where he came from in Holland I do not know, nor do I know who his parents were. There was a family of the same name on one of the Dutch islands and some of the same name living in Holland as lately as 30 or 40 years ago, but, frankly, I have never had either the time or the inclination to try to establish the line on the other side of the ocean before they came over here, nearly 300 years ago. In the dim distant past they may have been Jews or Catholics or Protestants — what I am more interested in is whether they were good citizens and believers in God — I hope they were both.” See the
Congressional Record
, March 15, 1933, p. 3915.

10
Among the early New Amsterdam Dutch, surnames were in a state of flux. “They wavered,” says Barker in Surnames in the United States,
American Mercury
, June, 1932, p. 226, “from patronym to descriptive, as from
Jansen, Cornielsen
and
Hendricksen
to
Blauvelt, Ten Eyck
or
Van Buren
, and back again, as well as from patronym to patronym. When twenty years of English rule had influenced them to adopt the English manner, they generally settled on the descriptive, but without any unanimity regarding spelling or the retention of the
van
if this was involved.”

11
Here Marryatt and Scheie de Vere seem to have slipped. Dr. S. E. Morison, whose authority in Massachusetts history is undisputed, tells me that the hill was really named after George
Bunker
, who came to Charlestown from England before 1635.

12
Americanisms; New York, 1872, p. 112. A few years ago Professor Atcheson L. Hench of the University of Virginia discovered Scheie de Vere’s own copy of this work in the university library, with annotations in his hand. He listed, apparently for a revised edition that never appeared, some other curious changes,
e.g., Ainse
to
Hanks, St. Cyr
to
Sears, Monat
to
Miner, L’ Auvergne
to
Lovern, Dudelant
to
Douglas, Henri Liver-nois d’Oligney
to
Hy Alden
, and
Jean Baptiste Sans Souci l’Evêque
to
John Lavake
. I am indebted to Professor Hench for this.

13
Pennsylvania German Pioneers: a Publication of the Original Lists of Arrivals in the Port of Philadelphia From 1727 to 1808, edited by W. J. Hinke; 3 vols.; Norris-town, Pa., 1934.

14
The name of August
Lüchow
, founder of the famous German restaurant in Fourteenth street, New York, is almost invariably pronounced
Loo-chow
in the town. Ask a taxi-driver to take you to
Lüchow’s
, and he will stare at you blankly. This change was promoted by the prudent dropping of the umlaut from the sign of the establishment in 1917.

15
The researches of the late Stephen Kekulé von Stradonitz showed that the original American
Rockefeller
was a German
Roggenfelder
(rye-fielder) from the lower Rhine.

16
Many more such transliterations and modifications are listed by A. B. Faust, in The German Element in the United States, above cited, particularly in his first volume. Others are in Pennsylvania Dutch, by S. S. Haldemann; London, 1872, p. 60, and in The Origin of Pennsylvania Surnames, by L. Oscar Kuhns,
Lippincott’s Magazine
, March, 1897, p. 395. See also Studies in Pennsylvania German Family Names, by the last named (his list is reprinted in Report of the Committee [of the American Council of Learned Societies] on Linguistic and National Stocks in the Population of the United States; Washington, 1932, p. 312
ff
); Deutsche Familiennamen unter fremden Völkern, by Stephan Kekulé von Stradonitz,
Mitteilungen der Aka-
demie zur wissenschaftlichen Erforschung und zur Pflege des Deutschtums
(Munich), April–May, 1928; and Deutsche Namen in Amerika, by the same,
B.-Z. am Mittag
(Berlin), Sept. 22, 1927.

17
For example,
Schultz
often appeared in the early Pennsylvania records as
Scholtz, Shiltz
and
Shoultz
.

18
In the records of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Arcadia, Md., founded
c
. 1770 (Twenty-third Report of the Society For the History of the Germans in Maryland; Baltimore, 1929, pp. 27–28) there are some curious variants from the period 1790–1825. Thus a name which now appears as
Algire
was then
Allgeiger, Algeier, Allgeier, Allgeyer
and
Allgire
, an
Elsroad
of today was
Eltzroth, Else-road, Elserote, Elserode
and
Elsrode
, and a
Loudenslager
of today was
Lautenschläger, Laudensläger, Laudenschläger, Lautenschleger
and
Laudenslager
. I once knew a
Lauten-berger
whose name had shrunk to
Lauten
, pro.
Lawton
. What is now
Upperco
in Maryland was, once
Oberkugen, Opferkuchen, Ober-kuchen
.

19
Westminster (Md.)
Democratic Advance
, Aug. 10, 1934.

20
Baltimore
Sun
, Dec. 2, 1906.

21
Koch
, a common German name, has very hard sledding in America. Its correct pronunciation is almost impossible to Americans; at best it becomes
Coke
or
Koash
. Hence it is often changed, not only to
Cook
, but to
Cox, Coke
or even
Cockey
.

22
The father of the once notorious evangelist, William A. Sunday, was a German named
Sonntag
, killed in the Civil War, 1863.

23
For these Dutch examples I am indebted to President John J. Hiemenga and Prof. Henry J. G. Van Andel, of Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich., to Prof. B. K. Kuiper of the same city, and to Dr. Paul de Kruif.

24
American Greek,
American Speech
, March, 1926, p. 308.

25
I am indebted here to Mr. T. D. Curculakis of Athens.
Pappas
means priest, and Mr. Curculakis explains that its popularity is at least partly due to the fact that the Greek priests, during the long years of bondage to the Turks, were the chief guardians of the national spirit. It was a
pappas
who raised the flag of liberty at the Monastery of St. Laura on March 25, 1821. Mr. Curculakis, who lived in the United States for a number of years, was constrained to change his surname while he was here to
Kriton
, picked from Plato’s Phaedon. At the same time he shortened his given names,
Timoleon Dimitriu
, to
Timon Damon
, and commonly used only their initials. Now that he has returned to Athens he is once more
Timoleon Dimitriu Curculakis
.

26
I am indebted here to Mr. H. A. Fitzgerald, editor and manager of the
Daily Press
.

27
A similar translation of Slavic names has probably gone on in the German areas of Pennsylvania, though I can find no record of it. In Louisiana, in the Eighteenth Century, a small Germany colony was assimilated by the French, and there were many changes in the German names. Thus,
Schaf
became
Chauffe, Buchwalter
became
Bouchevaldre, Buerckel
became
Birquelle, Wagensbach
became
Waguespack
, and
Katzenberger
became
Casbergue
. During the Spanish occupation some of the German names became Spanish. Thus
Hans Peter Keller
became
Juan Pedro Cueller
, and
Jacob Wilhelm Nolte
became
Santiago Villenol
. See Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana, by J. Hanno Deiler,
German American Annals
(Philadelphia), New Series, Vol. VIII, No. 4, July–Aug., 1909, p. 192
ff
. In the Catskill region of New York there is a family named
Masten
, always thought of as of Dutch origin, whose actual progenitor was an Englishman named
Marston
. Miss Lillian D. Wald tells me that in the early days of the great Jewish invasion of New York, many Eastern Jews with difficult Slavic or Hungarian names changed them to
Cohen
or
Goldberg
.

28
Czech Surnames in America,
American Mercury
, Nov., 1925.

29
The Americanization of Czech Surnames, by J. B. Dudek,
American Speech
, Dec., 1925. See also Czech-American Names, by the same,
Czecho-Slovak Student Life
, April, 1928. One Czech-American who refuses resolutely to change his name is the most distinguished of them all. He is Dr. Aleš Hrdlička, curator of the Smithsonian Institution. His given-name and surname lose their accents in “Who’s Who in America,” but not in the more accurate English “Who’s Who.” He explains humorously that an American transliteration of his surname would have to be something akin to
hard-liquor
. Here I am indebted to Mr. William Absolon, of Providence, R. I.

30
For aid here I am indebted to Mr. Sergei Senykoff of Detroit.

31
See Slavonic-English Transliterations, by H. B. Wells,
American Speech
, Sept., 1927. Also, Sixth Report of the United States Geographic Board; Washington, 1933, p. 41.

32
The Yugoslav Speech in America,
American Mercury
, Nov., 1927.

33
The family name was originally
Modrzejewski —
a palpable impossibility in America.

34
I am indebted here to Mr. Emil Revyuk, editor of the Ukrainian daily,
Svoboda
, of Jersey City. Mr. Revyuk says that Ukrainian surnames undergo all the usual changes. For example,
Petryshyn
and
Petry-shak
become
Peterson, Perey
becomes
Parry, Danylchuk, Danyl-chenko
and
Danylshyn
become
Danielson, Makohon
becomes
MacMahon, Zhinchak
becomes
Smith, Shevchynsky
becomes
Wagner, Macheyovsky
is contracted to
Mack
, and
Nyzovych
to
Nash
. Mr. Vladimir Geeza, editor of the
New Life
, of Olyphant, Pa., adds the following:
Daniliwsky
becomes
Daniels, Petrusiw
becomes
Peters, Silwerovitch
becomes
Silvers
, and
Wowk
(wolf) becomes
Wolf
. Here I follow the transliteration of my correspondents.