American Language (98 page)

It has thus become impossible in America to recognize Jews by their names. There are not only multitudes of
Smiths, Browns
and
Joneses
among them, but also many
Adamses, Lincolns, Grants, Lees, Jeffersons
and
Harrisons
, and even
Vanderbilts, Goulds, Schuylers, Cabots
⁵⁹
and
Lowells
. I turn to the roster of the Social Justice Commission
of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (1931), and find an
Ellis
, a
Fox
and a
Wise
. I proceed to a list of committees of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, an organization of Jewish college men, otherwise highly race-conscious, and find
Waller, Harwick, Rose, Ferguson, Livingston, Howland, Newman, Harte, Cotton, Ney, Morgan, Harris, Lewis, Richards, Gladstone, Eno, Rand
and
Butt
.
⁶⁰
I go to a roll of Boston Jews who have written books, and find
Taylor, Lyons, Millin, Curtiss
(
geb. Kirstein?
)
, Coleman, Davis, White
and
Burroughs
.
⁶¹
The process which turned a
Braunstein
into a
Trotsky
in Russia, and a
Finkelstein
into a
Litvinoff
has gone on in this country on a truly gigantic scale. And even when the old names have been retained, they have been modified, in many thousands of cases, in pronunciation. All the familiar name-endings —
-stein, -baum, -thou, -thal
and so on — acquire new values. The fashion for changing the pronunciation of
stein
from
stine
to
stean
seems to have come in during the World War, and it spread very quickly and is now almost universal. The single name
Stein
is still usually pronounced
stine, Klein
is still
Kline
and
Weinberg
is still
Wineberg
, but
Epstein, Bernstein, Hammerstein
and their congeners are now
Epstean, Bernstean,
⁶²
Hammerstean
, etc. The name of Anton
Rubinstein
, the composer, is always pronounced
-stean
by American radio announcers. Even the last syllables of names in
-stine, e.g., Durstine
, are commonly made
-stean
in New York. In
Einstein
the first syllable retains the sound of the German diphthong, but the
-stein
becomes
-stean
. In the same way
Weil
is
Weel
. How and why this affectation came into vogue I do not know, but probably it owes something to anti-German feeling during the war. French example may have helped, for in French
Goldstein
comes close to
gollsteen
. The diphthong
ei
, with its German value, is of course very rare in English, but in
either
it seems to be driving out
ee
.
⁶³
Since the war
Lehman
has ceased to to be
layman
and become
lee-man,
⁶⁴
Morgenthau
has become
morgen-thaw
, and
Strauss
has begun to turn into
straws
. The first German
s
in the last-named, of course, loses its
sh
-sound. In most other situations the German diphthong
au
is likewise
aw
, so that
Blaustein
becomes
Blawsteen
and
Rosenbaum
becomes
Rosenbawm. Kühn
(usually spelled
Kuhn
),
Loeb
& Company is always
coon-lobe. Meier
is often
meer, Bache
is
baysh, Shapiro
is sometimes
shap-yro
, and
Baruch
is
ber-ook
, with the accent on the last syllable. In New York, of course, the last syllable of the
-berg
names is often
boig
. In the case of the
-thai
names a new consonant has been invented. It is the
th
of
thick
, but with a distinct
t
-sound preceding. The name often sounds like
Rosent-thal
, and the same
tth
is also heard in
Thalberg, Thalheimer
, etc. The spelling of Jewish names is frequently changed, even when their pronunciation is but little modified. In New York I have encountered a
Dalshheimer
turned
Dalsemer, Schlesingers
turned
Slessinger
or
Slazenger
, and
Schöns
turned
Shain, Shane
or
Shean
. Elsewhere I have heard of
Labovitzes
turned
Laborises, Labouisses
and even
La Borwits
. I was once told — by a witness, alas, not too reliable — of a
Ginzberg
who spelled his name
Guinness-Bourg
.
⁶⁵
The spelling of the
-heimer
names is often changed to
-himer
, that of the
-heim
names to
-hym
, and that of the
-baum
names to
-bem
or even
-bum
.

Many of the changes in Jewish surnames are effected by degrees. Thus
Goldstein
first becomes
Goldstone
, then
Golston
and finally
Golson
. Samuel
Goldwyn
, the movie magnate, was born
Gelbfisch
, and passed as
Goldfish
in his pupal stage.
⁶⁶
Sometimes these successive changes have method in them, as is indicated by the following tale from Dr. Pepys’s Diary in the
Journal of the American Medical Association
written by Dr. Morris Fishbein, himself a Jew:

The Jews make these changes with extraordinary facility for two reasons. One of them I have mentioned — their desire to get rid of the two handicaps of foreignness and Jewishness at one clip. The other lies in the fact that they have borne their surnames, taking one with another, for less time than most Christians, and thus have less sentimental attachment to them. “Surnames became general among them,” says Dr. H. Flesch,
⁶⁷
“only toward the end of the Eighteenth or at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. In the years 1782–83 the Jews in Austria were compelled by law to assume surnames. In Frankfort-on-the-Main the same rule was prescribed by the edict of September 30, 1809; in Prussia by order of Hardenburg, dated March 11, 1812; and in Bavaria by the law of 1813.” “In Austria,” says C. L’Estrange Ewen,
⁶⁸
“the commissioners appointed to select the designations looked upon the occasion as a harvest, and, when insufficient financial consideration was forthcoming, bestowed most unpleasant appellatives.” He gives, among others, these examples:
Bettelarm
(destitute),
Eselkopf
(ass’s head),
Fresser
(glutton),
Gal-genvogel
(gallows-bird),
Geldschrank
(money-chest),
Karfunkel
(carbuncle),
Küssemich
(kiss me),
Rindkopf
(cow-head),
Saumagen
(hog’s pauch),
Schmetterling
(butterfly) and
Veilchenduft
(scent of violets). To these many of the
-stein
names might be added:
Goldstein
(goldstone),
Edelstein
(precious-stone),
Einstein
(one stone), and so on.
⁶⁹
The Sephardic or Spanish Jews whose surnames are much older, seldom change them, even in America: the
Cardozos, daSilvas, Fonsecas, Abarbanels, deCassereses
and
Solis Cohens
are as
proud of their patronymics as the
Percys
or
Salm-Salms
.
⁷⁰
But the Ashkenazim (German, Polish and Russian) Jews have no such reason for clinging to the names clapped on them. Says Dr. Solomon Solis Cohen:
⁷¹

The literature dealing with English, Scotch, Welsh and Irish surnames is enormous,
⁷²
but there is little in print about their permutations in the United States, and that little offers only meager light. The relative infrequency of hyphenated names is obvious; they began to appear on the wave of Anglomania that followed the Civil War, but the ribaldry of the vulgar quickly discouraged them.
⁷³
They survive, speaking generally, only among grass-widows and
female singers and elocutionists. The former sometimes indicate that they have been liberated from their bonds by prefixing their maiden surnames to their late husbands’ names, with or without hyphens. The latter, when they marry, frequently make similar amalgamations, and at the same time begin to call themselves
Madame
. A few of the older English surnames have undergone modification in America,
e.g., Venables
, which has lost its final
s
. There has also been a tendency to abandon
Griffiths
for
Griffith
.
⁷⁴
And where spellings have remained unchanged, pronunciations have been modified, especially in the South.
⁷⁵
Callowhill
, in Virginia, is sometimes pronounced
Carrol; Crenshawe
is
Granger; Hawthorne, Horton; Norsworthy, Nazary; Ironmonger, Munger; Farinholt, Fernall; Camp, Kemp; Drewry, Droit; Enroughty, Darby
;
⁷⁶
and
Taliaferro, Tolliver
. Dr. David Starr Jordan, in “The Days of a Man” (1922), tells of a neighbor in Western New York (
c
. 1860) who spelled his name
Zurhorst
and pronounced it
Zirst
, and of others who made
Cassia
of
Kershaw, Shuard
of
Sherwood
and
Glasby
of
Gillespie
. To match such prodigies the English themselves have
Sillinger
for
St. Leger, Sinjin
for
St. John, Crippiny
for
Crespigny, Weems
for
Wemyss, Looson-Gor
for
Leveson-Gower, Kaduggan
for
Cadogen, Mawlbra
for
Marlborough, Askew
for
Ayscough, Marshbanks
for
Marjoribanks, Po-ell
for
Powell, Beecham
for
Beauchamp, Trample-sure
for
Trampleasure
⁷⁷
Barkly
for
Berkeley, Chumly
for
Cholmondeley, Kookno
for
Cogenhoe, Trosley
for
Trotterscliffe
, and
Darby
for
Derby
.
⁷⁸
In general, there is a tendency in America to throw the accents back,
i.e.
, in such names as
Cassels, Gerard, Doran, Burnett
and
Maurice
. In England the first syllable is commonly accented; in the United States, the second.
This difference is often to be noted in Irish names. “An Irishman,” says Ernest Boyd, the Irish critic, now living in New York, “says
Wáddell, Móran, Bérnard, Púrcell, Máhony
, etc., but Americans and Irish-Americans stress the last syllable, as in
Morán
, or the penult, as in
Mahóny
. Another sea-change in Irish names,” adds Mr. Boyd, “is in the gutturals:
Coughlin
and
Gallagher
, instead of being pronounced
Cochlin
and
Gallacher
, become
Coglin
and
Gallager
, with the hard g.” The Irish in America have not taken to the revived Gaelic name-forms which delight so many of their
Landsleute
at home. I have searched several American telephone directories without finding any
MacSuibhne
(
McSweeney
),
OMaolcathaigh
(
Mulcahy
),
OSuilleobhain
(
O’Sullivan
),
OTreasaigh
(
Tracy
),
OMurchadha
(Murphy) or
MacEochagain
(Geoghan).
⁷⁹
The
Welsh custom of spelling certain names in
F
with two small
f
’s,
e.g., ffinch, ffrench, ffarington
and
ffoulkes
has been imitated in England, but not in America: there is not a single example in either “Who’s Who in America” or the Manhattan telephone directory.
⁸⁰
Such forms as John
Smith of F
and John
Jones of William
are occasionally found in the United States; they offer a convenient way to distinguish between cousins of the same name. The territorial form seen in Charles
Carroll of Carrollton
and John
Randolph of Roanoke
has not taken root; the only recent example that I can think of is
Kohler of Kohler
. But this is the trade-mark of a corporation rather than the name of a man.
⁸¹

Any list of American names is bound to show some extremely curious specimens — most of them clumsy adaptations of non-English names, but others apparently of Anglo-Saxon provenance. Frank Sullivan, an eager collector of such delicacies, gives the place of honor in his cabinet to the names of the Misses Dagmar
Sewer
and Mary Lou
Wham
. Some time ago one of the large life-insurance companies printed a list designed to show “the colorful variety of appellations which policy-holders bear.” From it I take the following: