inability of Americans to pronounce certain Continental consonants,
and their disinclination to remember the Continental vowel sounds.
Many an immigrant, finding his name constantly mispronounced, changes
its vowels or drops some of its consonants; many another shortens it,
or translates it, or changes it entirely for the same reason. Just as
a well-known Graeco-French poet changed his Greek name of
/Papadiamantopoulos/ to /Moréas/ because /Papadiamantopoulos/ was too
much for Frenchmen, and as an eminent Polish-English novelist [Pg278]
changed his Polish name of /Korzeniowski/ to /Conrad/ because few
Englishmen could pronounce /owski/ correctly, so the Italian or Greek
or Slav immigrant, coming up for naturalization, very often sheds his
family name with his old allegiance, and emerges as /Taylor/,
/Jackson/ or /Wilson/. I once encountered a firm of Polish Jews,
showing the name of /Robinson & Jones/ on its sign-board, whose
partners were born /Rubinowitz/ and /Jonas/. I lately heard of a
German named /Knoche/--a name doubly difficult to Americans, what with
the /kn/ and the /ch/--who changed it boldly to /Knox/ to avoid being
called /Nokky/. A Greek named /Zoyiopoulous/, /Kolokotronis/,
/Mavrokerdatos/ or /Constantinopolous/ would find it practically
impossible to carry on amicable business with Americans; his name
would arouse their mirth, if not their downright ire. And the same
burden would lie upon a Hungarian named /Beniczkyné/ or /Gyalui/, or
/Szilagyi/, or /Vezercsillagok/. Or a Finn named /Kyyhkysen/, or
/Jääskelainen/, or /Tuulensuu/, or /Uotinen/,--all honorable Finnish
patronymics. Or a Swede named /Sjogren/, or /Schjtt/, or
/Leijonhufvud/. Or a Bohemian named /Srb/, or /Hrubka/. Or, for that
matter, a German named /Kannengiesser/, or /Schnapaupf/, or
/Pfannenbecker/.
But more important than this purely linguistic hostility, there is a
deeper social enmity, and it urges the immigrant to change his name
with even greater force. For a hundred years past all the heaviest and
most degrading labor of the United States has been done by successive
armies of foreigners, and so a concept of inferiority has come to be
attached to mere foreignness. In addition, these newcomers, pressing
upward steadily in the manner already described, have offered the
native a formidable, and considering their lower standards of living,
what has appeared to him to be an unfair competition on his own plane,
and as a result a hatred born of disastrous rivalry has been added to
his disdain. Our unmatchable vocabulary of derisive names for
foreigners reveals the national attitude. The French /boche/, the
German /hunyadi/ (for Hungarian),[20] and the old English /froggy/
(for Frenchman) seem lone and feeble beside our great repertoire:
[Pg279] /dago/, /wop/, /guinea/, /kike/, /goose/, /mick/, /harp/,[21]
/bohick/, /bohunk/, /square-head/, /greaser/, /canuck/,
/spiggoty/,[22] /chink/, /polack/, /dutchie/, /scowegian/, /hunkie/
and /yellow-belly/. This disdain tends to pursue an immigrant with
extraordinary rancor when he bears a name that is unmistakably foreign
and hence difficult to the native, and open to his crude burlesque.
Moreover, the general feeling penetrates the man himself, particularly
if he be ignorant, and he comes to believe that his name is not only a
handicap, but also intrinsically discreditable--that it wars subtly
upon his worth and integrity.[23] This feeling, perhaps, accounted for
a good many changes of surnames among Germans upon the entrance of the
United States into the war. But in the majority of cases, of course,
the changes so copiously reported--/e. g./, from /Bielefelder/ to
/Benson/, and from /Pulvermacher/ to /Pullman/--were merely efforts at
protective coloration. The immigrant, in a time of extraordinary
suspicion and difficulty, tried to get rid of at least one
handicap.[24] [Pg280]
This motive constantly appears among the Jews, who face an
anti-Semitism that is imperfectly concealed and may be expected to
grow stronger hereafter. Once they have lost the faith of their
fathers, a phenomenon almost inevitable in the first native-born
generation, they shrink from all the disadvantages that go with
Jewishness, and seek to conceal their origin, or, at all events, to
avoid making it unnecessarily noticeable.[25] To this end they modify
the spelling of the more familiar Jewish surnames, turning /Levy/ into
/Lewy/, /Lewyt/, /Levitt/, /Levin/, /Levine/, /Levey/, /Levie/[26] and
even /Lever/, /Cohen/ into /Cohn/, /Cahn/, /Kahn/, /Kann/, /Coyne/ and
/Conn/, /Aarons/ into /Arens/ and /Ahrens/ and /Solomon/ into
/Salmon/, /Salomon/ and /Solmson/. In the same way they shorten their
long names, changing /Wolfsheimer/ to /Wolf/, /Goldschmidt/ to /Gold/,
and /Rosenblatt/, /Rosenthal/, /Rosenbaum/, /Rosenau/, /Rosenberg/,
/Rosenbusch/, /Rosenblum/, /Rosenstein/, /Rosenheim/ and /Rosenfeldt/
to /Rose/. Like the Germans, they also seek refuge in translations
more or less literal. Thus, on the East Side of New York, /Blumenthal/
is often changed to /Bloomingdale/, /Schneider/ to /Taylor/,
/Reichman/ to /Richman/, and /Schlachtfeld/ to /Warfield/. /Fiddler/,
a common Jewish name, becomes /Harper/; so does /Pikler/, which is
Yiddish for /drummer/. /Stolar/, which is a Yiddish word borrowed from
the Russian, signifying /carpenter/, is often changed to /Carpenter/.
/Lichtman/ and /Lichtenstein/ become /Chandler/. /Meilach/, which is
Hebrew for /king/, becomes /King/, and so does /Meilachson/. The
strong tendency to seek English-sounding equivalents for names of
noticeably foreign origin changes /Sher/ into /Sherman/, /Michel/ into
/Mitchell/, /Rogowsky/ into /Rogers/, /Kolinsky/ into /Collins/,
/Rabinovitch/ into /Robbins/, /Davidovitch/ into /Davis/, /Moiseyev/
into /Macy/ or /Mason/, and /Jacobson/, /Jacobovitch/ and /Jacobovsky/
into /Jackson/. This last [Pg281] change proceeds by way of a
transient change to /Jake/ or /Jack/ as a nickname. /Jacob/ is always
abbreviated to one or the other on the East Side. /Yankelevitch/ also
becomes /Jackson/, for /Yankel/ is Yiddish for /Jacob/.[27]
Among the immigrants of other stocks some extraordinarily radical
changes in name are to be observed. Greek names of five, and even
eight syllables shrink to /Smith/; Hungarian names that seem to be all
consonants are reborn in such euphonious forms as /Martin/ and /Lacy/.
I have encountered a /Gregory/ who was born /Grgurevich/ in Serbia; a
/Uhler/ who was born /Uhlyarik/; a /Graves/ who descends from the fine
old Dutch family of /'sGravenhage/. I once knew a man named /Lawton/
whose grandfather had been a /Lautenberger/. First he shed the
/berger/ and then he changed the spelling of /Lauten/ to make it fit
the inevitable American mispronunciation. There is, again, a family of
/Dicks/ in the South whose ancestor was a /Schwettendieck/--apparently
a Dutch or Low German name. There is, yet again, a celebrated American
artist, of the Bohemian patronymic of /Hrubka/, who has abandoned it
for a surname which is common to all the Teutonic languages, and is
hence easy for Americans. The Italians, probably because of the
relations established by the Catholic church, often take Irish names,
as they marry Irish girls; it is common to hear of an Italian pugilist
or politician named /Kelly/ or /O'Brien/. The process of change is
often informal, but even legally it is quite facile. The
Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, authorizes the court, as a part
of the naturalization of any alien, to make an order changing his
name. This is frequently done when he receives his last papers;
sometimes, if the newspapers are to be believed, without his
solicitation, and even against his protest. If the matter is
overlooked at the time, he may change his name later on, like any
other citizen, by simple application to a court of record.
Among names of Anglo-Saxon origin and names naturalized long before
the earliest colonization, one notes certain American peculiarities,
setting off the nomenclature of the United States [Pg282] from that
of the mother country. The relative infrequency of hyphenated names in
America is familiar; when they appear at all it is almost always in
response to direct English influences.[28] Again, a number of English
family names have undergone modification in the New World. /Venable/
may serve as a specimen. The form in England is almost invariably
/Venables/, but in America the final /s/ has been lost, and every
example of the name that I have been able to find in the leading
American reference-books is without it. And where spellings have
remained unchanged, pronunciations have been frequently modified. This
is particularly noticeable in the South. /Callowhill/, down there, is
commonly pronounced /Carrol/; /Crenshawe/ is /Granger/; /Hawthorne/,
/Horton/; /Heyward/, /Howard/; /Norsworthy/, /Nazary/; /Ironmonger/,
/Munger/; /Farinholt/, /Fernall/; /Camp/, /Kemp/; /Buchanan/,
/Bohannan/; /Drewry/, /Droit/; /Enroughty/, /Darby/; and /Taliaferro/,
/Tolliver/.[29] The English /Crowninshields/ pronounce every syllable
of their name; the American /Crowninshields/ commonly make it
/Crunshel/. /Van Schaick/, an old New York name, is pronounced /Von
Scoik/. A good many American Jews, aiming at a somewhat laborious
refinement, change the pronunciation of the terminal /stein/ in their
names so that it rhymes, not with /line/, but with /bean/. Thus, in
fashionable Jewish circles, there are no longer any /Epsteins/,
/Goldsteins/ and /Hammersteins/ but only /Epsteens/, /Goldsteens/ and
/Hammersteens/. The American Jews differ further from the English in
pronouncing /Levy/ to make the first syllable rhyme with /tea/; the
English Jews always make the name /Lev-vy/. To match such [Pg283]
American prodigies as /Darby/ for /Enroughty/, the English themselves
have /Hools/ for /Howells/, /Sillinger/ for /St. Leger/, /Sinjin/ for
/St. John/, /Pool/ for /Powell/, /Weems/ for /Wemyss/, /Kerduggen/ for
/Cadogen/, /Mobrer/ for /Marlborough/, /Key/ for /Cains/, /Marchbanks/
for /Marjoribanks/, /Beecham/ for /Beauchamp/, /Chumley/ for
/Cholmondeley/, /Trosley/ for /Trotterscliffe/, and /Darby/ for
/Derby/, not to mention /Maudlin/ for /Magdalen/.
§ 2
/Given Names/--The non-Anglo Saxon American's willingness to anglicize
his patronymic is far exceeded by his eagerness to give "American"
baptismal names to his children. The favorite given names of the old
country almost disappear in the first native-born generation. The
Irish immigrants quickly dropped such names as /Terence/, /Dennis/ and
/Patrick/, and adopted in their places the less conspicuous /John/,
/George/ and /William/. The Germans, in the same way, abandoned
/Otto/, /August/, /Hermann/, /Ludwig/, /Heinrich/, /Wolfgang/,
/Albrecht/, /Wilhelm/, /Kurt/, /Hans/, /Rudolf/, /Gottlieb/, /Johann/
and /Franz/. For some of these they substituted the English
equivalents: /Charles/, /Lewis/, /Henry/, /William/, /John/, /Frank/
and so on. In the room of others they began afflicting their offspring
with more fanciful native names: /Milton/ and /Raymond/ were their
chief favorites thirty or forty years ago.[30] The Jews carry the
thing to great lengths. At present they seem to take most delight in
/Sidney/, /Irving/, /Milton/, /Roy/, /Stanley/ and /Monroe/, but they
also call their sons /John/, /Charles/, /Henry/, /Harold/, /William/,
/Richard/, /James/, /Albert/, /Edward/, /Alfred/, /Frederick/,
/Thomas/, and even /Mark/, /Luke/ and /Matthew/, and their daughters
/Mary/, /Gertrude/, /Estelle/, /Pauline/, /Alice/ and /Edith/. As a
boy I went to school with many Jewish boys. The commonest given names
among them were /Isadore/, /Samuel/, /Jonas/, /Isaac/ and /Israel/.
These are seldom bestowed by [Pg284] the rabbis of today. In the same
school were a good many German pupils, boy and girl. Some of the girls
bore such fine old German given names as /Katharina/, /Wilhelmina/,
/Elsa/, /Lotta/, /Ermentrude/ and /Frankziska/. All these have begun
to disappear.
The newer immigrants, indeed, do not wait for the birth of children to
demonstrate their naturalization; they change their own given names
immediately they land. I am told by Abraham Cahan that this is done
almost universally on the East Side of New York. "Even the most
old-fashioned Jews immigrating to this country," he says, "change
/Yosel/ to /Joseph/, /Yankel/ to /Jacob/, /Liebel/ to /Louis/,
/Feivel/ to /Philip/, /Itzik/ to /Isaac/, /Ruven/ to /Robert/, and
/Moise/ or /Motel/ to /Morris/." Moreover, the spelling of /Morris/,
as the position of its bearer improves, commonly changes to /Maurice/,
though the pronunciation may remain /Mawruss/, as in the case of Mr.
Perlmutter. The immigrants of other stocks follow the same habit.
Every Bohemian /Vaclav/ or /Vojtĕch/ becomes a /William/, every
/Jaroslav/ becomes a /Jerry/, every /Bronislav/ a /Barney/, and every
/Stanislav/ a /Stanley/. The Italians run to /Frank/ and /Joe/; so do
the Hungarians and the Balkan peoples; the Russians quickly drop their
national system of nomenclature and give their children names
according to the American plan. Even the Chinese laundrymen of the big
cities become /John/, /George/, /Charlie/ and /Frank/; I once
encountered one boasting the name of /Emil/.
The Puritan influence, in names as in ideas, has remained a good deal
more potent in American than in England. The given name of the
celebrated /Praise-God/ Barebones marked a fashion which died out in
England very quickly, but one still finds traces of it in America,
/e. g./, in such women's names as /Faith/, /Hope/, /Prudence/, /Charity/
and /Mercy/, and in such men's names as /Peregrine/.[31] The religious
obsession of the New England colonists is also kept in mind by the
persistence of Biblical names: /Ezra/, /Hiram/, /Ezekial/,
/Zachariah/, /Elijah/, /Elihu/, and so on. These [Pg285] names excite
the derision of the English; an American comic character, in an
English play or novel, always bears one of them. Again, the fashion of
using surnames as given names is far more widespread in America than
in England. In this country, indeed, it takes on the character of a
national habit; fully three out of four eldest sons, in families of
any consideration, bear their mothers' surnames as middle names. This
fashion arose in England during the seventeenth century, and one of
its fruits was the adoption of such well-known surnames as /Stanley/,
/Cecil/, /Howard/, /Douglas/ and /Duncan/ as common given names.[32]
It died out over there during the eighteenth century, and today the
great majority of Englishmen bear such simple given names as /John/,
/Charles/ and /William/--often four or five of them--but in America it
has persisted. A glance at a roster of the Presidents of the United
States will show how firmly it has taken root. Of the ten that have
had middle names at all, six have had middle names that were family
surnames, and two of the six have dropped their other given names and
used these surnames. This custom, perhaps, has paved the way for
another: that of making given names of any proper nouns that happen to
strike the fancy. Thus General Sherman was named after an Indian
chief, /Tecumseh/, and a Chicago judge was baptized /Kenesaw
Mountain/[33] in memory of the battle that General Sherman fought
there. A late candidate for governor of New York had the curious given
name of /D-Cady/.[34] Various familiar American given names,
originally surnames, are almost unknown in England, among them,
/Washington/, /Jefferson/, /Jackson/, /Lincoln/, /Columbus/ and /Lee/.
/Chauncey/ forms a curious addition to the list. It was the surname of
the second president of Harvard College, and was bestowed upon their
offspring by numbers of his graduates. It then got into [Pg286]
general use and acquired a typically American pronunciation, with the
/a/ of the first syllable flat. It is never encountered in England.
In the pronunciation of various given names, as in that of many
surnames, English and American usages differ. /Evelyn/, in England, is
given two syllables instead of three, and the first is made to rhyme
with /leave/. /Irene/ is given two syllables, making it /Irene-y/.
/Ralph/ is pronounced /Rafe/. /Jerome/ is accented on the first
syllable; in America it is always accented on the second.[35]
§ 3
/Geographical Names/--"There is no part of the world," said Robert
Louis Stevenson, "where nomenclature is so rich, poetical, humorous
and picturesque as in the United States of America." A glance at the
latest United States Official Postal Guide[36] or report of the United
States Geographic Board[37] quite bears out this opinion. The map of
the country is besprinkled with place names from at least half a
hundred languages, living and dead, and among them one finds examples
of the most daring and elaborate fancy. There are Spanish, French and
Indian names as melodious and charming as running water; there are
names out of the histories and mythologies of all the great races of
man; there are names grotesque and names almost sublime. No other
country can match them for interest and variety. When there arises
among us a philologist who will study them as thoroughly and
intelligently as the Swiss, Johann Jakob Egli, studied the place names
of Central Europe, his work will be an invaluable contribution to the
history of the nation, and no less to an understanding of the
psychology of its people.
The original English settlers, it would appear, displayed little
imagination in naming the new settlements and natural features
[Pg287] of the land that they came to. Their almost invariable
tendency, at the start, was to make use of names familiar at home, or
to invent banal compounds. /Plymouth Rock/ at the North and
/Jamestown/ at the South are examples of their poverty of fancy; they
filled the narrow tract along the coast with new /Bostons/,
/Cambridges/, /Bristols/ and /Londons/, and often used the adjective
as a prefix. But this was only in the days of beginning. Once they had
begun to move back from the coast and to come into contact with the
aborigines and with the widely dispersed settlers of other races, they
encountered rivers, mountains, lakes and even towns that bore far more
engaging names, and these, after some resistance, they perforce
adopted. The native names of such rivers as the /James/, the /York/
and the /Charles/ succumbed, but those of the /Potomac/, the
/Patapsco/, the /Merrimack/ and the /Penobscot/ survived, and they
were gradually reinforced as the country was penetrated. Most of these
Indian names, in getting upon the early maps, suffered somewhat severe
simplifications. /Potowánmeac/ was reduced to /Potomack/ and then to
/Potomac/; /Unéaukara/ became /Niagara/; /Reckawackes/, by the law of
Hobson-Jobson, was turned into /Rockaway/, and /Pentapang/ into /Port
Tobacco/.[38] But, despite such elisions and transformations, the
charm of thousands of them remained, and today they are responsible
for much of the characteristic color of American geographical
nomenclature. Such names as /Tallahassee/, /Susquehanna/,
/Mississippi/, /Allegheny/, /Chicago/, /Kennebec/, /Patuxent/ and
/Arkansas/ give a barbaric brilliancy to the American map. Only the
map of Australia, with its mellifluous Maori names, can match it.
The settlement of the American continent, once the eastern coast
ranges were crossed, proceeded with unparalleled speed, and so the
naming of the new rivers, lakes, peaks and valleys, and of the new
towns and districts no less, strained the inventiveness of the
pioneers. The result is the vast duplication of names that shows
itself in the Postal Guide. No less than eighteen imitative [Pg288]
/Bostons/ and /New Bostons/ still appear, and there are nineteen
/Bristols/, twenty-eight /Newports/, and twenty-two /Londons/ and /New
Londons/. Argonauts starting out from an older settlement on the coast
would take its name with them, and so we find /Philadelphias/ in
Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee, /Richmonds/ in Iowa,
Kansas and nine other western states, and /Princetons/ in fifteen.
Even when a new name was hit upon it seems to have been hit upon
simultaneously by scores of scattered bands of settlers; thus we find
the whole land bespattered with /Washingtons/, /Lafayettes/,
/Jeffersons/ and /Jacksons/, and with names suggested by common and
obvious natural objects, /e. g./, /Bear Creek/, /Bald Knob/ and
/Buffalo/. The Geographic Board, in its last report, made a belated
protest against this excessive duplication. "The names /Elk/,
/Beaver/, /Cottonwood/ and /Bald/," it said, "are altogether too
numerous."[39] Of postoffices alone there are fully a hundred
embodying /Elk/; counting in rivers, lakes, creeks, mountains and
valleys, the map of the United States probably shows at least twice as
many such names.
A study of American geographical and place names reveals eight general
classes, as follows: (/a/) those embodying personal names, chiefly the
surnames of pioneers or of national heroes; (/b/) those transferred
from other and older places, either in the eastern states or in
Europe; (/c/) Indian names; (/d/) Dutch, Spanish and French names;
(/e/) Biblical and mythological names; (/f/) names descriptive of
localities; (/g/) names suggested by the local flora, fauna or
geology; (/h/) purely fanciful names. The names of the first class are
perhaps the most numerous. Some consist of surnames standing alone, as
/Washington/, /Cleveland/, /Bismarck/, /Lafayette/, /Taylor/ and
/Randolph/; others consist of surnames in combination with various old
and new /Grundwörter/, as /Pittsburgh/, /Knoxville/, /Bailey's
Switch/, /Hagerstown/, /Franklinton/, /Dodge City/, /Fort Riley/,
/Wayne Junction/ and /McKeesport/; and yet others are contrived of
given names, either alone or in combination, as /Louisville/, /St.
Paul/, /Elizabeth/, /Johnstown/, /Charlotte/, /Williamsburg/ and
/Marysville/. The number of towns in the United States bearing women's
given names is enormous. [Pg289] I find, for example, eleven
postoffices called /Charlotte/, ten called /Ada/ and no less than
nineteen called /Alma/. Most of these places are small, but there is
an /Elizabeth/ with 75,000 population, an /Elmira/ with 40,000, and an
/Augusta/ with nearly 45,000.
The names of the second class we have already briefly observed. They
are betrayed in many cases by the prefix /New/; more than 600 such
postoffices are recorded, ranging from /New Albany/ to /New Windsor/.
Others bear such prefixes as /West/, /North/ and /South/, or various
distinguishing affixes, /e. g./, /Bostonia/, /Pittsburgh Landing/,
/Yorktown/ and /Hartford City/. One often finds eastern county names
applied to western towns and eastern town names applied to western
rivers and mountains. Thus, /Cambria/, which is the name of a county
but not of a postoffice in Pennsylvania, is a town name in seven
western states; /Baltimore/ is the name of a glacier in Alaska, and
/Princeton/ is the name of a peak in Colorado. In the same way the
names of the more easterly states often reappear in the west, /e. g./,
in /Mount Ohio/, Colo., /Delaware/, Okla., and /Virginia City/, Nev.
The tendency to name small American towns after the great capitals of
antiquity has excited the derision of the English since the earliest
days; there is scarcely an English book upon the states without some
fling at it. Of late it has fallen into abeyance, though sixteen
/Athenses/ still remain, and there are yet many /Carthages/, /Uticas/,
/Syracuses/, /Romes/, /Alexandrias/, /Ninevahs/ and /Troys/. The third
city of the nation, /Philadelphia/, got its name from the ancient
stronghold of Philadelphus of Pergamun. To make up for the falling off
of this old and flamboyant custom, the more recent immigrants have
brought with them the names of the capitals and other great cities of
their fatherlands. Thus the American map bristles with /Berlins/,
/Bremens/, /Hamburgs/, /Warsaws/ and /Leipzigs/, and is beginning to
show /Stockholms/, /Venices/, /Belgrades/ and /Christianias/.