Congressional and Departmental Printing, Including the /Congressional
Record/, ed. of Feb., 1917; Washington, 1917. A copy of this style
book is in the proof-room of nearly every American daily newspaper and
its rules are generally observed.
[26] Accounts of earlier proposals of reform in English spelling are
to be found in Sayce's Introduction to the Science of Language, vol.
i, p. 330 /et seq./, and White's Everyday English, p. 152 /et seq./
The best general treatment of the subject is in Lounsbury's English
Spelling and Spelling Reform; New York, 1909.
[27] Its second list was published on January 28, 1908, its third on
January 25, 1909, and its fourth on March 24, 1913, and since then
there have been several others. But most of its literature is devoted
to the 12 words and to certain reformed spellings of Webster, already
in general use.
[28] The /Literary Digest/ is perhaps the most important. Its usage is
shown by the Funk & Wagnalls Company Style Card; New York, 1914.
[29] /Tyre/ was still in use in America in the 70's. It will be found
on p. 150 of Mark Twain's Roughing It; Hartford, 1872.
[30] /Vide/ the /Congressional Record/ for March 26, 1918, p. 4374. It
is curious to note that the French themselves are having difficulties
with this and the cognate words. The final /e/ has been dropped from
/biplan/, /monoplan/ and /hydroplan/, but they seem to be unable to
dispense with it in /aéroplane/.
[31] For example, in Teepee Neighbors, by Grace Coolidge; Boston,
1917, p. 220; Duty and Other Irish Comedies, by Seumas O'Brien; New
York, 1916, p. 52; Salt, by Charles G. Norris; New York, 1918, p. 135,
and The Ideal Guest, by Wyndham Lewis, /Little Review/, May, 1918, p.
3. O'Brien is an Irishman and Lewis an Englishman, but the printer in
each case was American. I find /allright/, as one word but with two
/ll's/, in Diplomatic Correspondence With Belligerent Governments,
etc., European War, No. 4; Washington, 1918, p. 214.
[32] /Vide/ How to Lengthen Our Ears, by Viscount Harberton; London,
1917, p. 28.
[33] Krapp: Modern English, p. 181.
[34] Why Not Speak Your Own Language? in /Delineator/, Nov., 1917, p.
12.
[35] I once noted an extreme form of this naturalization in a leading
Southern newspaper, the /Baltimore Sun/. In an announcement of the
death of an American artist it reported that he had studied at the
/Bozart/ in Paris. In New York I have also encountered /chaufer/.
[36] Now and then, of course, a contrary tendency asserts itself. For
example, the plural of /medium/, in the sense of advertising medium,
is sometimes made /media/ by advertising men. /Vide/ the /Editor and
Publisher/, May 11, 1918.
[37] /Irish World/, June 26, 1918.
[38] /Vide/ The Declaration of Independence, by Herbert Friedenwald,
New York, 1904, p. 262 /et seq./
[39] Now and then the English flirt with the American usage. Hart
says, for example, that "originally the cover of the large Oxford
Dictionary had '/a/ historical.'" But "/an/ historical" now appears
there.
[Pg268]
VIII
Proper Names in America
§ 1
/Surnames/--A glance at any American city directory is sufficient to
show that, despite the continued political and cultural preponderance of
the original English strain, the American people have quite ceased to be
authentically English in race, or even authentically British. The blood
in their arteries is inordinately various and inextricably mixed, but
yet not mixed enough to run a clear stream. A touch of foreignness still
lingers about millions of them, even in the country of their birth. They
show their alien origin in their speech, in their domestic customs, in
their habits of mind, and in their very names. Just as the Scotch and
the Welsh have invaded England, elbowing out the actual English to make
room for themselves, so the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the
Scandinavians and the Jews of Eastern Europe, and in some areas, the
French, the Slavs and the hybrid-Spaniards have elbowed out the
descendants of the first colonists. It is not exaggerating, indeed, to
say that wherever the old stock comes into direct and unrestrained
conflict with one of these new stocks, it tends to succumb, or, at all
events, to give up the battle. The Irish, in the big cities of the East,
attained to a truly impressive political power long before the first
native-born generation of them had grown up.[1] The Germans, following
the limestone belt of the Alleghany foothills, pre-empted the best lands
East of the mountains before the new [Pg269] republic was born.[2] And
so, in our own time, we have seen the Swedes and Norwegians shouldering
the native from the wheat lands of the Northwest, and the Italians
driving the decadent New Englanders from their farms, and the Jews
gobbling New York, and the Slavs getting a firm foothold in the mining
regions, and the French Canadians penetrating New Hampshire and Vermont,
and the Japanese and Portuguese menacing Hawaii, and the awakened
negroes gradually ousting the whites from the farms of the South.[3] The
birth-rate among all these foreign stocks is enormously greater than
among the older stock, and though the death-rate is also high, the net
increase remains relatively formidable. Even without the aid of
immigration it is probable that they would continue to rise in numbers
faster than the original English and so-called Scotch-Irish.[4]
Turn to the letter /z/ in the New York telephone directory and you
will find a truly astonishing array of foreign names, some of them in
process of anglicization, but many of them still arrestingly
outlandish. The only Anglo-Saxon surname beginning with /z/ is
/Zacharias/,[5] and even that was originally borrowed from the Greek.
To this the Norman invasion seems to have added only /Zouchy/. But in
Manhattan and the Bronx, even among the necessarily limited class of
telephone subscribers, there are nearly 1500 persons whose names begin
with the letter, and among them one finds fully 150 different
surnames. The German /Zimmermann/, with either one /n/ or two, is
naturally the most numerous single name, and following close upon it
are its derivatives, /Zimmer/ and /Zimmern/. With them are many more
German names: /Zahn/, /Zechendorf/, /Zeffert/, /Zeitler/, /Zeller/,
/Zellner/, /Zeltmacher/, /Zepp/, /Ziegfeld/, /Zabel/, /Zucker/,
/Zuckermann/, /Ziegler/, /Zillman/, /Zinser/ and so on. They are all
represented heavily, but they indicate neither the earliest nor the
most formidable accretion, for underlying them are many Dutch [Pg270]
names, /e. g./, /Zeeman/ and /Zuurmond/, and over them are a large
number of Slavic, Italian and Jewish names. Among the first I note
/Zabludosky/, /Zabriskie/, /Zachczynski/, /Zapinkow/, /Zaretsky/,
/Zechnowitz/, /Zenzalsky/ and /Zywachevsky/; among the second,
/Zaccardi/, /Zaccarini/, /Zaccaro/, /Zapparano/, /Zanelli/,
/Zicarelli/ and /Zucca/; among the third, /Zukor/, /Zipkin/ and
/Ziskind/. There are, too, various Spanish names: /Zelaya/, /Zingaro/,
etc. And Greek: /Zapeion/, /Zervakos/ and /Zouvelekis/. And Armenian:
/Zaloom/, /Zaron/ and /Zatmajian/. And Hungarian: /Zadek/, /Zagor/ and
/Zichy/. And Swedish: /Zetterholm/ and /Zetterlund/. And a number that
defy placing: /Zrike/, /Zvan/, /Zwipf/, /Zula/, /Zur/ and /Zeve/.
Any other American telephone directory will show the same
extraordinary multiplication of exotic patronymics. I choose, at
random, that of Pittsburgh, and confine myself to the saloon-keepers
and clergymen. Among the former I find a great many German names:
/Artz/, /Bartels/, /Blum/, /Gaertner/, /Dittmer/, /Hahn/, /Pfeil/,
/Schuman/, /Schlegel/, /von Hedemann/, /Weiss/ and so on. And Slavic
names: /Blaszkiewicz/, /Bukosky/, /Puwalowski/, /Krzykolski/,
/Tuladziecke/ and /Stratkiewicz/. And Greek and Italian names:
/Markopoulos/, /Martinelli/, /Foglia/, /Gigliotti/ and /Karabinos/.
And names beyond my determination: /Tyburski/, /Volongiatica/,
/Herisko/ and /Hajduk/. Very few Anglo-Saxon names are on the list;
the continental foreigner seems to be driving out the native, and even
the Irishman, from the saloon business. Among the clerics, naturally
enough, there are more men of English surname, but even here I find
such strange names as /Auroroff/, /Ashinsky/, /Bourajanis/, /Duic/,
/Cillo/, /Mazure/, /Przvblski/, /Pniak/, /Bazilevich/, /Smelsz/ and
/Vrhunec/. But Pittsburgh and New York, it may be argued, are scarcely
American; unrestricted immigration has swamped them; the newcomers
crowd into the cities. Well, examine the roster of the national House
of Representatives, which surely represents the whole country. On it I
find /Bacharach/, /Dupré/, /Esch/, /Estopinal/, /Focht/, /Heintz/,
/Kahn/, /Kiess/, /Kreider/, /La Guardia/, /Kraus/, /Lazaro/,
/Lehbach/, /Romjue/, /Siegel/ and /Zihlman/, not to mention the
insular delegates, /Kalanianole/, [Pg271] /de Veyra/, /Davila/ and
/Yangko/, and enough Irishmen to organize a parliament at Dublin.
In the New York city directory the fourth most common name is now
/Murphy/, an Irish name, and the fifth most common is /Meyer/, which
is German and chiefly Jewish. The /Meyers/ are the /Smiths/ of
Austria, and of most of Germany. They outnumber all other clans. After
them come the /Schultzes/ and /Krauses/, just as the /Joneses/ and
/Williamses/ follow the /Smiths/ in Great Britain. /Schultze/ and
/Kraus/ do not seem to be very common names in New York, but
/Schmidt/, /Muller/, /Schneider/ and /Klein/ appear among the fifty
commonest.[6] /Cohen/ and /Levy/ rank eighth and ninth, and are both
ahead of /Jones/, which is second in England, and /Williams/, which is
third. /Taylor/, a highly typical British name, ranking fourth in
England and Wales, is twenty-third in New York. Ahead of it, beside
/Murphy/, /Meyer/, /Cohen/ and /Levy/, are /Schmidt/, /Ryan/,
/O'Brien/, /Kelly/ and /Sullivan/. /Robinson/, which is twelfth in
England, is thirty-ninth in New York; even /Schneider/ and /Muller/
are ahead of it. In Chicago /Olson/, /Schmidt/, /Meyer/, /Hansen/ and
/Larsen/ are ahead of /Taylor/, and /Hoffman/ and /Becker/ are ahead
of /Ward/; in Boston /Sullivan/ and /Murphy/ are ahead of any English
name save /Smith/; in Philadelphia /Myers/ is just below /Robinson/.
Nor, as I have said, is this large proliferation of foreign surnames
confined to the large cities. There are whole regions in the Southwest
in which /López/ and /Gonzales/ are far commoner names than /Smith/,
/Brown/ or /Jones/, and whole regions in the Middle West wherein
/Olson/ is commoner than either /Taylor/ or /Williams/, and places
both North and South where /Duval/ is at least as common as /Brown/.
Moreover, the true proportions of this admixture of foreign blood are
partly concealed by a wholesale anglicization of surnames, sometimes
deliberate and sometimes the fruit of mere confusion. That /Smith/,
/Brown/ and /Miller/ remain in first, second and third places among
the surnames of New York is surely no sound evidence of Anglo-Saxon
survival. The German and [Pg272] Scandinavian /Schmidt/ has
undoubtedly contributed many a /Smith/, and /Braun/ many a /Brown/,
and /Müller/ many a /Miller/. In the same way /Johnson/, which holds
first place among Chicago surnames, and /Anderson/, which holds third,
are plainly reinforced from Scandinavian sources, and the former may
also owe something to the Russian /Ivanof/. /Miller/ is a relatively
rare name in England; it is not among the fifty most common. But it
stands thirtieth in Boston, fourth in New York and Baltimore, and
second in Philadelphia.[7] In the last-named city the influence of
/Müller/, probably borrowed from the Pennsylvania Dutch, is plainly
indicated, and in Chicago it is likely that there are also
contributions from the Scandinavian /Möller/, the Polish /Jannszewski/
and the Bohemian /Mlinár/. /Myers/, as we have seen, is a common
surname in Philadelphia. So are /Fox/ and /Snyder/. In some part, at
least, they have been reinforced by the Pennsylvania Dutch /Meyer/,
/Fuchs/ and /Schneider/. Sometimes /Müller/ changes to /Miller/,
sometimes to /Muller/, and sometimes it remains unchanged, but with
the spelling made /Mueller/. /Muller/ and /Mueller/ do not appear
among the commoner names in Philadelphia; all the /Müllers/ seem to
have become /Millers/, thus putting /Miller/ in second place. But in
Chicago, with /Miller/ in fourth place, there is also /Mueller/ in
thirty-first place, and in New York, with /Miller/ in third place,
there is also /Muller/ in twenty-fourth place.
Such changes, chiefly based upon transliterations, are met with in all
countries. The name of /Taaffe/, familiar in Austrian history, had an
Irish prototype, probably /Taft/. General /Demikof/, one of the
Russian commanders at the battle of Zorndorf, in 1758, was a Swede
born /Themicoud/. Franz Maria von /Thugut/, the Austrian diplomatist,
was a member of an Italian Tyrolese family named /Tunicotto/. This
became /Thunichgut/ (=/do no good/) in Austria, and was changed to
/Thugut/ (=/do good/) to bring it into greater accord with its
possessor's deserts.[8] In [Pg273] /Bonaparte/ the Italian /buon(o)/
became the French /bon/. Many English surnames are decayed forms of
Norman-French names, for example, /Sidney/ from /St. Denis/, /Divver/
from /De Vere/, /Bridgewater/ from /Burgh de Walter/, /Montgomery/
from /de Mungumeri/, /Garnett/ from /Guarinot/, and /Seymour/ from
/Saint-Maure/. A large number of so-called Irish names are the
products of rough-and-ready transliterations of Gaelic patronymics,
for example, /Findlay/ from /Fionnlagh/, /Dermott/ from /Diarmuid/,
and /McLane/ from /Mac Illeathiain/. In the same way the name of
/Phoenix/ Park, in Dublin, came from /Fion Uisg/ (=/fine water/). Of
late some of the more ardent Irish authors and politicians have sought
to return to the originals. Thus, /O'Sullivan/ has become /O
Suilleabháin/, /Pearse/ has become /Piarais/, /Mac Sweeney/ has become
/Mac Suibhne/, and /Patrick/ has suffered a widespread transformation
to /Padraic/. But in America, with a language of peculiar vowel-sounds
and even consonant-sounds struggling against a foreign invasion
unmatched for strength and variety, such changes have been far more
numerous than across the ocean, and the legal rule of /idem sonans/ is
of much wider utility than anywhere else in the world. If it were not
for that rule there would be endless difficulties for the /Wises/
whose grandfathers were /Weisses/, and the /Leonards/ born
/Leonhards/, /Leonhardts/ or /Lehnerts/, and the /Manneys/ who descend
and inherit from /Le Maines/.
"A crude popular etymology," says a leading authority on surnames,[9]
"often begins to play upon a name that is no longer significant to the
many. So the /Thurgods/ have become /Thoroughgoods/, and the
/Todenackers/ have become the Pennsylvania Dutch /Toothakers/, much as
/asparagus/ has become /sparrow-grass/." So, too, the /Wittnachts/ of
Boyle county, Kentucky, descendants of a Hollander, have become
/Whitenecks/, and the /Lehns/ of lower Pennsylvania, descendants of
some far-off German, have become /Lanes/.[10] Edgar Allan /Poe/ was a
member of a family long settled in Western Maryland, the founder being
one /Poh/ or /Pfau/, a native of the Palatinate. Major George [Pg274]
/Armistead/, who defended Fort McHenry in 1814, when Francis Scott Key
wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner," was the descendant of an /Armstädt/
who came to Virginia from Hesse-Darmstadt. General George A. /Custer/,
the Indian fighter, was the great-grandson of one /Küster/, a Hessian
soldier paroled after Burgoyne's surrender. William /Wirt/,
anti-Masonic candidate for the presidency in 1832, was the son of one
/Wörth/. William /Paca/, a signer of the Declaration of Independence,
was the great-grandson of a Bohemian named /Paka/. General W. S.
/Rosecrans/ was really a /Rosenkrantz/. Even the surname of Abraham
/Lincoln/, according to some authorities, was an anglicized form of
/Linkhorn/.[11]
Such changes, in fact, are almost innumerable; every work upon
American genealogy is full of examples. The first foreign names to
undergo the process were Dutch and French. Among the former, /Reiger/
was debased to /Riker/, /Van de Veer/ to /Vandiver/, /Van Huys/ to
/Vannice/, /Van Siegel/ to /Van Sickle/, /Van Arsdale/ to
/Vannersdale/, and /Haerlen/ (or /Haerlem/) to /Harlan/;[12] among the
latter, /Petit/ became /Poteet/, /Caillé/ changed to /Kyle/, /De la
Haye/ to /Dillehay/, /Dejean/ to /Deshong/, /Guizot/ to /Gossett/,
/Guereant/ to /Caron/, /Soule/ to /Sewell/, /Gervaise/ to /Jarvis/,
/Bayle/ to /Bailey/, /Fontaine/ to /Fountain/, /Denis/ to /Denny/,
/Pebaudière/ to /Peabody/, /Bon Pas/ to /Bumpus/ and /de l'Hôtel/ to
/Doolittle/. "Frenchmen and French Canadians who came to New England,"
says Schele de Vere, "had to pay for such hospitality as they there
received by the sacrifice of their names. The brave /Bon Coeur/,
Captain Marryatt tells us in his Diary, became Mr. /Bunker/, and gave
his name to Bunker's Hill."[13] But it was the German immigration that
provoked the first really wholesale slaughter. A number of
characteristic German sounds--for example, that of /ü/ and the
guttural in /ch/ and /g/--are almost impossible to the Anglo-Saxon
pharynx, and so they had to go. Thus, /Bloch/ was changed to /Block/
or /Black/, /Ochs/ to [Pg275] /Oakes/, /Hock/ to /Hoke/, /Fischbach/
to /Fishback/, /Albrecht/ to /Albert/ or /Albright/, and /Steinweg/ to
/Steinway/, and the /Grundwort/, /bach/, was almost universally
changed to /baugh/, as in /Brumbaugh/. The /ü/ met the same fate:
/Grün/ was changed to /Green/, /Führ/ to /Fear/ or /Fuhr/, /Wärner/ to
/Warner/, /Düring/ to /Deering/, and /Schnäbele/ to /Snavely/,
/Snabely/ or /Snively/. 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/,[14], /Reuss/ to
/Royce/, /Koester/ to /Kester/, /Kuehle/ to /Keeley/, /Schroeder/ to
/Schrader/, /Stehli/ to /Staley/, /Weymann/ to /Wayman/, /Friedmann/
to /Freedman/, /Bauman/ to /Bowman/, 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.
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
/Fuhrmann/, /Kuhns/ or /Coons/ for /Kuntz/, /Hoover/ for /Huber/,
/Levering/ for /Liebering/, /Jones/ for /Jonas/, /Swope/ for /Schwab/,
/Hite/ or /Hyde/ for /Heid/, /Andrews/ for /André/, /Young/ for
/Jung/, and /Pence/ for /Pentz/.[15]
The American antipathy to accented letters, mentioned in the chapter
on spelling, is particularly noticeable among surnames. An immigrant
named /Fürst/ inevitably becomes plain /Furst/ in the United States,
and if not the man, then surely his son. /Löwe/, in the same way, is
transformed into /Lowe/ (pro. /low/),[16] [Pg276] /Lürmann/ into
/Lurman/, /Schön/ into /Schon/, /Suplée/ into /Suplee/ or /Supplee/,
/Lüders/ into /Luders/ and /Brühl/ into /Brill/. 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/, and /Schoen/ to /Schon/ or
/Shane/. In the same way the /au/ in such names as /Rosenau/ changes
to /aw/. So too, the French /oi/-sound is disposed of, and /Dubois/ is
pronounced /Doo-bóys/, and /Boileau/ acquires a first syllable rhyming
with /toil/. So with the /kn/ in the German names of the /Knapp/
class; they are all pronounced, probably by analogy with /Knight/, as
if they began with /n/. So with /sch/; /Schneider/ becomes /Snyder/,
/Schlegel/ becomes /Slagel/, and /Schluter/ becomes /Sluter/. If a
foreigner clings to the original spelling of his name he must usually
expect to hear it mispronounced. /Roth/, in American, quickly becomes
/Rawth/; /Frémont/, losing both accent and the French /e/, become
/Freemont/; /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
/Wilstach/ and /Welsbach/ the /ch/ becomes a /k/. In /Anheuser/ the
/eu/ changes to a long /i/. The final /e/, important in German, is
nearly always silenced; /Dohme/ rhymes with /foam/; /Kühne/ becomes
/Keen/.
In addition to these transliterations, there are constant translations
of foreign proper names. "Many a Pennsylvania /Carpenter/," says Dr.
Oliphant,[17] "bearing a surname that is English, from the French,
from the Latin, and there a Celtic loan-word [Pg277] in origin, is
neither English, nor French, nor Latin, nor Celt, but an original
German /Zimmermann/."[18] A great many other such translations are
under everyday observation. /Pfund/ becomes /Pound/; /Becker/,
/Baker/; /Schumacher/, /Shoemaker/; /König/, /King/; /Weisberg/,
/Whitehill/; /Koch/, /Cook/;[19] /Neuman/, /Newman/; /Schaefer/,
/Shepherd/ or /Sheppard/; /Gutmann/, /Goodman/; /Goldschmidt/,
/Goldsmith/; /Edelstein/, /Noblestone/; /Steiner/, /Stoner/;
/Meister/, /Master(s)/; /Schwartz/, /Black/; /Weiss/, /White/;
/Weber/, /Weaver/; /Bucher/, /Booker/; /Vogelgesang/, /Birdsong/;
/Sontag/, /Sunday/, and so on. Partial translations are also
encountered, /e. g./, /Studebaker/ from /Studebecker/, and
/Reindollar/ from /Rheinthaler/. By the same process, among the newer
immigrants, the Polish /Wilkiewicz/ becomes /Wilson/, the Bohemian
/Bohumil/ becomes /Godfrey/, and the Bohemian /Kovár/ and the Russian
/Kuznetzov/ become /Smith/. Some curious examples are occasionally
encountered. Thus Henry /Woodhouse/, a gentleman prominent in
aeronautical affairs, came to the United States from Italy as Mario
Terenzio Enrico /Casalegno/; his new surname is simply a translation
of his old one. And the /Belmonts/, the bankers, unable to find a
euphonious English equivalent for their German-Jewish patronymic of
/Schönberg/, chose a French one that Americans could pronounce.