American Language (95 page)

Such changes have been almost innumerable in the United States; every work upon American genealogy is full of examples. The first foreign names to undergo the process were Dutch and French. When, in 1664, the English drove the Dutch out of New Amsterdam, their property and their surnames were both at the mercy of the invaders. Some of the wealthier and more resolute of them, dug in up the Hudson, resisted both forms of spoliation with great pertinacity, and in consequence a number of their names survive to this day, along with some of their money — for example,
Van Rensselaer, Stuyvesant, Ten Eyck
and
Schuyler
. But the lesser folk were helpless, and in a little while most of the
Kuipers
were
Coopers
, nearly all the
Haerlens
were
Harlands
, and many of the
Van Ars-dales, Van de Veers
and
Reigers
were
Vannersdales, Vandivers
and
Rikers
.
¹⁰
Among the French in New England there were similar transmogrifications, and
Petit
changed to
Poteet, Caillé
to
Kyle, De La Haye
to
Dillehay, Dejean
to
Deshong, Guizot
to
Gossett, Soulé
to
Sewell, Gervaise
to
Jarvis, Bayle
to
Bailey, Fontaine
to
Fountain
, and
Denis
to
Denny
. “Frenchmen and French Canadians who came to New England,” says Scheie de Vere,“had to pay for such hospitality as they there received by the sacrifice of their names. The brave
Bon Cœur
, Captain Marryatt tells us in his Diary, became Mr.
Bunker
, and gave his name to Bunker’s Hill.
¹¹
Pibaudiére
was changed
into
Peabody, Bon Pas
into
Bumpus
, and the haughty
de l’Hôtel
became a genuine Yankee under the guise of
Doolittle.
”
¹²
But it was the German immigration, beginning in 1683, and rising largely after 1717, that provoked the first really wholesale slaughter. The captains of ships landing at Philadelphia were required to furnish the authorities with lists of their passengers, and after 1727 this order was usually complied with. In addition, every immigrant was required to subscribe to an oath of allegiance, and to another abjuring the Church of Rome. Thus three lists of names were produced, and in recent years they have been published.
¹³
But when the newcomers got to the Pennsylvania uplands their names were barbarously manhandled by the officials, usually Scotch-Irish, of the local courts and other offices of record. Almost every
Johannes Kuntz
of the ship lists thus became a
John Coons
in the interior, and every
Pfeffer
a
Pepper
, and every
Schmidt
a
Smith
, The names including the more characteristic German sounds, impossible to the British larynx — for example, the guttural in
ch
and
g —
were under especially heavy pressure. Thus,
Bloch
was changed to
Block
or
Black, Hoch
to
Hoke, Albrecht
to
Albert
or
Albright
, and
Steinweg
to
Steinway
, and the
Grundwort, bach
, was almost always turned into
baugh
or
paugh
, as in
Baughman
and
Fishpaugh
(or
Fishpaw
). The
ü
met the same fate:
Grün
was changed to
Green, Sänger
to
Sanger
or
Singer, Glück
to
Gluck, Wärner
to
Warner, Löwe
to
Lowe, Brühl
to
Brill, Stäheli
to
Staley, Düring
to
Deering
, and
Schnäbele
to
Snabely, Snavely
or
Snively
.
¹⁴
In many other cases there were changes in spelling to preserve vowel sounds differently represented in German and English. Thus,
Blum
was changed to
Bloom, Alt
to
Ault, Reuss
to
Royce, Koester
to
Kester, Kuehle
to
Keeley, Schroeder
to
Schrader, Stehli
to
Staley, Weymann
to
Wayman, Klein
to
Kline
or
Cline, Friedmann
to
Freed-man, Bauman
to
Bowman, Braun
to
Brown
, and
Lang
(as the best compromise possible) to
Long
. The change of
Oehm
to
Ames
belongs to the same category; the addition of the final
s
represents a typical effort to substitute the nearest related Anglo-Saxon name, or name so sounding. Other examples of that effort are to be found in
Michaels
for
Michaelis, Bowers
for
Bauer, Johnson
for
Johannsen, Ford
for
Furth, Hines
for
Heintz, Kemp
for
Kempf, Foreman
for
Führmann, Kuhns
or
Coons
for
Kuntz, Grosscup
for
Grosskopf, Westfall
for
Westphal, Rockefeller
for
Roggenfelder,
¹⁵
Kerngood
for
Kerngut, Collenberg
for
Kaltenberg, Cronkhite
for
Krankheit, Betts
for Betz,
Crile
for
Kreil
,
Swope
for
Schwab, Hite
or Hyde for
Heid
, and
Young
for
Jung
.
¹⁶
The early German immigrants had no very definite ideas about the spelling of their own names. Many variant forms are to be found in the Pennsylvania records. “They were easily swayed,” says Barker, “in the use of vowels, converting from one to another.
¹⁷
They also shifted from one consonant to another within limits, as from
p
or
b
to
f
, or from
d
to
t
, or vice versa.”
¹⁸

Even when no accent betrays it, the foreign diphthong is under hard pressure. Thus the German
oe
disappears and
Loeb
is changed to
Lobe
or
Laib, Oehler
to
Ohler, Loeser
to
Leser, Schoen
to
Schon
or
Shane
, and
Mueller
to
Miller
or
Muller
, as in Whittier’s “Maud Muller” (1866). The
k
in German words beginning with
kn
tends to disappear: they are assimilated with the old Devonshire surname,
Knapp
. Thus
Knoebel
is often pronounced
Noble
. In the same way the German
sch
shrinks to
s
, and
Schneider
becomes
Snyder, Schlegel
becomes
Slagel
, and
Schluter
becomes
Sluter
. If a German or other foreigner in America clings to the original spelling of his name he must usually expect to hear it mispronounced.
Roth
, in America, quickly becomes
Rawth, Ranft
is pronounced
Ranf; Frémont
, losing both accent and the French
e
, becomes
Fremont; Blum
begins to rhyme with
dumb; Mann
rhymes with
van
, and
Lang
with
hang; Krantz, Lantz
and their cognates with
chance; Kurtz
with
shirts
; the first syllable of
Gutmann
with
but
; the first of
Kahler
with
bay
; the first of
Werner
with
turn
; the first of
Wagner
with
nag. Uhler
, in America, is always
Youler. Berg
loses its German
e
-sound for an English u-sound, and its German hard
g
for an English
g
; it becomes identical with the
berg
of
iceberg
. The same change in the vowel occurs in
Erdmann
. In
König
the German diphthong succumbs to a long
o
, and the hard
g
becomes
k
; the common pronunciation is
Cone-ik
. Often, in
Berger
, the
g
becomes soft, and the name rhymes with
verger
. It becomes soft, too, in
Bittinger
. In
Anheuser
the
eu
changes to
ow
or
ei
. The final
e
, important in German, is nearly always silenced;
Dohme
rhymes with
foam; Kühne
becomes
Keen
. In the collectanea of Judge J. C. Ruppenthal, of Russell, Kansas, a very careful observer, are many curious specimens. He finds
Viereck
transformed into
Fearhake, Vogelgesang
into
Fogelsong, Pfannenstiel
into
Fanestil, Pfüger
into
Phlegar, Pfeil
into
Feil
, and
Steinmetz
into
Stimits
. I have myself encountered
lsennock
for
Eisenach
, and
Duttera, Dutterer, Dotterer
and
Dutrow
(all in one family!) for
Dötterer
.
¹⁹

In addition to these transliterations there are constant translations of foreign proper names. “Many a Pennsylvania Carpenter,” says Dr. S. Grant Oliphant, “bearing a surname that is English, from
the French, from the Latin, and there a Celtic loan-word in origin, is neither English, nor French, nor Latin, nor Celt, but an original German
Zimmermann
.”
²⁰
A great many other such translations are under everyday observation.
Pfund
becomes
Pound; Becker, Baker; Schumacher, Shoemaker; König, King; Koch, Cook;
²¹
Newmann, Newman; Schaefer, Shepherd
or
Sheppard; Meister, Master
(
s
);
Schwartz, Black; Weiss, White; Kurtz, Short; Weber, Weaver; Bucher, Booker; Vogelgesang, Birdsong; Sonntag, Sunday
.
²²
and so on. It is not unusual for some members of a family to translate the patronymic while others leave it unchanged. Thus, in Pennsylvania (and no doubt elsewhere) there are
Carpenters
and
Zimmermans
of the same blood. Partial translations are also encountered,
e.g., Stude-baker
from
Studebecker
, and
Reindollar
from
Rheinthaler
, and radical shortenings,
e.g., Swiler
from
Lebenschweiler, Kirk
from
Kirkes-lager
, and
Castle
(somewhat fantastically) from
Katzenellenbogen
. The same processes show themselves in the changes undergone by the names of the newer immigrants. The Hollanders in Michigan often have to submit to translations of their surnames. Thus
Hoog-steen
becomes
Highstone; Roos, Rose; Veldhuis, Fieldhouse; Huis-man, Houseman; Prins, Prince; Kuiper, Cooper; Zwartefoote, Black-foot; Zilvernagel, Silvernail; Bredevelt, Brookfreed; Wagenaar, Wagner; Dÿkhuis, Dykehouse; Koning, King; Werkman, Workman; Nieuwhuis, Newhouse
; and
Christiaanse, Christians.
²³
; Similarly the Greek
Triantafyllou
(signifying
rose
) is often turned into
Rose, Mylonas
becomes
Miller
, and
Giannopoulos
(the descendant of
Gi-annis
, or
loannis
) becomes
Johnson
. The Greek surnames are often very long, and in American they have to be shortened. Thus, “
Pappadakis, Pappachristides
and
Pappadimitracoupoulos
,” says Mr. So-tirios S. Lontos, editor of
Atlantis
, the Greek daily of New York, “become
Pappas
by taking a portion of the front part of the name, while
Panagiotopoulos, Constantinopoulos
and
Gerasimopoulos
change into
Poulos
by adopting only the tail end. So the
Pappases
and
Pouloses
have naturally become the
Smiths
and
Browns
of American Greeks, although these names are fairly uncommon in their native land.”
²⁴
But
Pappas
itself is sometimes sacrificed, despite its general popularity. Thus
Pappageorgiou
is shaved down to
Georgious, Pappadimitracoupoulos
becomes
Jameson
(part clipping and part translation), and
Pappapolychronopoulos
becomes
Chronos
, with
Poulos
following
Pappas
into the discard.
²⁵
Other Greek names are changed to bring them into harmony with American analogues. Thus
Christides
becomes
Christie, Nikolaou
becomes
Nicholas
, and
Georgiou
becomes
George
. John
Cameron,
a train-robber sentenced to Leavenworth for twenty-seven years on December 29, 1926, was born
Kamariotis
. On April 5, 1935, a Greek living in Pontiac, Mich., broke into the news by reason of his name. It was
Glasfkos Pappa-theodorokomoundoronicolucopoulos
, and his eight children, it appeared, favored changing the surname to
Pappas
. “There are many
Pappases
and many
Copouloses
,” he said to a Pontiac
Daily Press
reporter, “and I would like my children to keep the name as it really is. But,” with an expressive shrug of the shoulders, “I guess I’ll have a tough time making them do it.”
²⁶

The Slav immigrants to America brought with them names even more difficult to American tongues than those of the Greeks, and they had to make changes following all the usual patterns. Among the Czechs these include more or less crude transliterations,
e.g.
, of
ZděnЎ
into
Stenny, Hřebec
into
Hurbick
, and
Cerviček
into
Servisk
; translations,
e.g.
, of
Kovář
into
Smith, Holič
into
Barber, Mlynář
into
Miller, Vlk
into
Wolf
, and
Zelény
into
Green
; and efforts to bring untranslatable names into harmony with English names of similar sound,
e.g., Macá
becomes
Macy, Mosnička
becomes
Mason, Kutiš
becomes
Curtis
, and
Vališ
becomes
Wallace
. Some of the Czech
immigrants, put down as Austrians in the earlier immigration returns, settled among Germans, and in consequence not a few of them adopted German names, often by translation. Thus
Krejčí
(tailor) became
Schneider, Dvořák
(courtier) became
Hoffman
, and
Svec
(shoemaker) became
Schumacher
.
²⁷
A family named
Matoušek
changed its name to
Matuscheck
to accommodate German spelling, then modified it to
Mathushek
, and finally translated it into the English
Matthews
. Some of the Czechs also changed their names to Irish forms. Thus
Prujín
became
Brian
and then
O’Brien
, and
Otřáska
became
O’Tracy
. “Among freak aliases,” says Monsignor J. B. Dudek, the leading authority on the Czech language in America, “
O’Hare
for
Zajíc
(rabbit),
O’Shaunnessy
for
Očenášek
(dim. ‘Our Father,’ used as a common term for the Lord’s Prayer),
McLoud
for
Mráček
(a small cloud), and
Casey
, for which a Mr.
Sýr
(cheese) let pass a contemplated German
Kase
, will about tie for second honors. The first prize goes without question to one
Záchod
(originally, a bypath; then euphemistically, and now exclusively, the
châlet
de
nécessité
), who fondly imagined that a German
Backhaus
would escape the American interpretation,
back-house
. It did not; and a rapid translation to
Bakehouse
failed utterly to remove certain first impressions.” Public opinion among the older Czechs was violently opposed to this abandonment of Czech patronymics, but it had to yield to natural forces. Says Monsignor Dudek: