TYPES OF GERMAN SURNAME CHANGES IN AMERICA
ur names are very much part of what de- bilized. The move to the new linguistic envi- Ofines us as a person.1 The given name ronment brings with it adaptations and, in identifies us as individuals within the group in some cases, drastic changes. which we live and function. Normally, we are As a nation of immigrants, the United States the only person identified by that particular has become home to millions of families whose name within the group. Most of us have given surnames were no longer in harmony with the names that our parents liked for some reason prevailing language or its orthographic rules. or other, selected in a rather accidental fashion. This is certainly the reason for a laissez-faire atti- Our surname is, of course, anything but acci- tude towards name changes as observed by dental. A person's surname, also called the Howard F. Barker: family name, is the reference point which de- Changes of name have never been prohibited fines our relationship to society at large. It in this country and are rarely questioned by links us to the generations of our family which the law. Indeed, slight modifications are not came before us as well as to our living relatives recognized as changes, provided the same beyond the immediate family. The family name sound is retained. Given the considerable amount of illiteracy, especially in colonial opens up vistas of ancestry, family history, na- times, and a continual pressure on foreign tional origin, religious background. names to make them more American, numer- Originally all names, whether given or fam- ous alterations have ensued.3 ily, were based on meaningful words and were The overview which follows establishes a formed or bestowed on the basis of what they classification system for alterations to German meant. Over time, changes in the language names which occurred after the bearers of have frequently obscured the original mean- those names immigrated to America.4 ings. This is particularly true of given names. In his book German-American Names, George In a surname the original meaning often re- F. Jones articulates the popular notion that the mains obvious as long as the name stays within name changes originated with the captains of the language of its origin, e.g., names such as the immigrant ships: Carpenter and Weaver in English or Zimmermann and Weber in German tell us that the ancestor When the immigrants boarded their ships at with whom the name originated was a carpen- Rotterdam, the English captains had difficulty ter or a weaver respectively. Even with less in writing their manifests or ships [sic] lists. Knowing no German, and unfamiliar with Ger- transparent names, a lingering knowledge man dialects, the scribes wrote down the about the meaning of the family name is names as they heard them, sometime in the handed down from generation to generation form of the English names most resembling the sound. In this way, Theiss, Weiss, and Weid- in most families. 5 Given that one's name is so much a part of mann became Dice, Wise and Whiteman [. . .] what defines us as a person, most people would Although it is true that the ship lists fre- consider meddling with their names as the quently show the kind of spelling changes equivalent of an assault upon their personality. Jones describes, immigrants were under no At least this would be the case in European obligation to use their names in the shape they countries.2 But when a person moves from the had been spelled by the captain or his clerks country and language in which his or her after their arrival on American shores.6 Until name originated to a different linguistic envi- the immigration process was formalized by ronment, as is the case upon emigration, what channelling all immigrants through Ellis Is- is left of a name's semantic transparency is lost. land, which was not until 1892, immigrants did Also lost is the link to the standard orthogra- not receive an official immigration document. phy in the original language. As a consequence As to the misspellings, it is unlikely that the im- the written manifestation of the name is desta- migrants even remembered in what shape
-23- German Surnames their names had been taken down—if they the correct wording only in cases of outright could read at all. As H. L. Mencken7 observed, translation. "[t]he early German immigrants had no very The following overview of changes that were definite ideas about the spelling of their own most common uses the system and terminol- names." Of equally little long-term conse- ogy designed by Einar Haugen11 in his discus- quence, as far as name spellings were con- sion of Norwegian surnames in America. Modi- cerned, was the act of putting one's signature fications and additions accommodate the under the oath of allegiance or signing the developments that specifically concern sur- document abjuring the Church of Rome, as names that are of German origin. Examples was required by law.8 are taken from the author's files collected over An official act of somewhat more con- a period of almost two decades, verified and sequence was the registration of land pur- augmented by checks on the PhoneDisc12 sys- chases in the local courts. Here again, German tem. Particularly illustrative examples are also surnames appear in all kinds of shapes, either taken from existing studies. perfectly German or totally Americanized, or Haugen distinguished retention from revision in between. The American bureaucracy solved and substitution. In the case of retention, the the problem by establishing the principle of original spelling is preserved but pronuncia- idem sonans, that is, if different name spellings tion shows the influence of the English-speak- "sounded the same," a claim of an unbroken ing environment. Revision includes respelling, line of ownership was acknowledged. elimination of unfamiliar letter combinations, Today, most scholars are in agreement that and abbreviating. In the case of substitution, in the majority of cases name changes are no trace of the name's original orthographic likely to have occurred gradually rather than manifestation is preserved. Haugen noted that through an official act.9 Immigrants pro- "in practice these alternatives might overlap, nounced their names in much the same ways since the orthographic revision could make a they had pronounced them in the Old Coun- name coincide with a previously existing Eng- try. Their English-speaking neighbors picked lish name."13 Still, such cases do not invalidate up the names as sounds, possibly making a the basic distinctions, which prove useful in mental picture of a spelling according to the bringing some order into what H. L. Mencken rules of the English language. When it came to called "a dreadful mess."14 writing the names, those mental pictures were put onto paper. As long as the bearers of the I. RETENTION OF THE GERMAN names still knew German and understood the SPELLING spelling of their name, they would either cor- Not all German names changed or were rect the misspellings or just disregard them. changed. In the areas of the country that were But the time would come when the German settled when general literacy had already es- language was lost within the family and the feel tablished a predominance of the written over for what was correct in German spelling no the spoken medium, many names that are com- longer prevailed. Sooner or later many would plicated even by German standards have re- get tired of the constant need to correct. As a tained their spellings. For the city of Milwaukee result, the world around them would settle on this includes, according to the city telephone spellings that would be easy to write and re- directory, Bauernfeind, Eineichner, Eisenhauer, member for a person used to hearing and writ- Friedrichsohn, Harnischfeger, Heinzelmann, Neuen- ing the English language.10 In most cases, and schwander, Pfannenstiel, Schumacher, Schwarzkopf, certainly in most cases where the Anglicized Schwerdtfeger, Seidensticker, Sichlassenfallen, Stadt- spelling produced a resemblance of the sound mueller, Uihlein and many others. of the German original, it is therefore more ap- propriate to say that the names "changed" With Persistence of German Pronunciation rather than "were changed." "Were changed" is Names may retain their spelling but will
-24- German Surnames most likely be affected in their pronunciation. German origin. Some names may get by with The relationship between symbol and sound is minor changes, such as Fischer, Frick, Keller. language-specific; German names transferred Others become unrecognizable to a German into an English-speaking environment will be ear, such as Ueberroth ['jub∂, raθ]. pronounced according to the rules of English. Spelling pronunciation takes care of the two There are very few German names which German consonant sounds not found in Eng- would be pronounced the same in both En- lish, [ç] and [x] are both represented by
-25- German Surnames
fellow citizens the name Schantz sounded more by -26- German Surnames Upon immigration, it was common to to reflect the "German" sound (see Silencing change the <ß> spelling to -27- German Surnames Klein>Kline or Cline, also Clyne, Kaiser>Kizer, such as Bodey, Goethie, Kadey and Kadie, Langey Bäumeler> Bimeler26 Neuhäuser>Nihizer. The re- and Langie. Names with more than a single let- spel-ling in the latter examples is certainly due ter between the stem vowel and the final e re- to the fact the [oi] became [aI] in the German tain their bi-syllabic structure more easily but dialects that predominated among the early will often add a y just to make the pronuncia- immigrants. In many other cases the spelling tion quite clear, or because an -ey or -y ending -28- German Surnames the sound [k] is not widespread. Hence, the teristics of the dental sound [1]) even if the let- pronunciation tends to lead to the more famil- ter t is dropped entirely and the names spelled iar spelling -29- German Surnames The "superfluous" letter most routinely the German name is closer in sound to the re- dropped is one n from -mann as the base el- spective English equivalent, e.g., in the case of ement in compounds: Bachman, Haldeman. Apfelbaum, Apfel is more similar to apple than The process is, of course, supported by the fact Baum is to tree. Mann is closer to man than any that it results in the English translation of the other German-English corresponding pair and German word. Equally "superfluous" is one of hence the element first and most frequently the word-final ss that were ß in German in changed. Along these lines it is possible to es- names such as Ziegenfuss, that will become tablish an hierarchical order and predict, in a Ziegenfus. given example, which one of the elements is likely to be changed and which one is not. Clipping German surnames tend to be longer than III. SUBSTITUTION English ones. This easily leads to clipping part Substitution results in surname forms that of the name off in everyday life. There may look completely English. Nothing in their also have been a desire on the part of the im- spelling suggests their German origin. Yet an migrant to shorten the German name, es- important difference presents itself when these pecially if it is burdened with difficult spelling. names are seen side by side with the German Clipping affects the first part of a name more names they replaced. Some are quite different commonly than the second part: in their spelling but their "meaning" is the 36 Lautenbergef>Lauten, Lebenschweiler> Swiler , same. These are the names that were con- Rosenbaum Ross(!), Schrecken-berger>Berger, Sei- sciously translated. Others also are, technically, 37 38 den-spinner>Seidens , Swartzenbaugh> Swartz , the translations of their German counterparts. Veitenheimer> Veit, Wildschuetz> Wild. But they look quite similar to their German counterparts and in fact, simple respelling Partial Respelling/ Translation played the major role in their reshaping. Most A large number of German surnames are of the latter changes result in linguistic cog- compound names, consisting of a base word nates. (often a name in its own right) and a deter- mining element. In America, both of these can Substitution by Meaning: Translation undergo changes but typically, only one of the New names resulting from translation have elements is affected, e.g. in Eisenhower (Ger- only their meaning in common with the Ger- man Eisenhauer), the base word is respelled man names they replaced. Their spellings are whereas the equally un-American determiner completely different. To bring about the remains unchanged. In this case, the respelling change, a conscious act was required, either an is just that, i.e., hower is not an English word, act of power on the part of an outside agent or but in most cases respelling actually results in agency, or an act of will on the part of the an English word which tends to be the transla- name bearer. tion of the changed element. Changes imposed by outside agents seem to Examples for changes of the first element have taken place at the time of early German are, Applebaum (German Apfelbaum), Brownstein immigration. It is reported that "[w]henever (German Braunstein), Good-weiler (German William Penn could translate a German name Gutweiler), Newmeyer (German Neumeyer). The into a corresponding English one, he did so in second element is changed in Baumgarden issuing patents for land in Pennsylvania; thus (German Baum-garten), Messersmith (German the respectable Carpenter family in Lancaster Messer-schmidt), Steinway (German Steinweg), are the descendants of a Zimmermann."39 and Haudenshield (German Haudenschild, a so- In many situations and at various times in called "imperative" surname). Whether the American history, German immigrants or their first or the last element changes seems to be descendants found it desirable to hide the con- determined solely by which of the elements in nections to the ancestral homeland which their -30- German Surnames surnames betrayed, by having their names offi- dividual family will discover that the change oc- cially changed. Many such changes were en- curred. But also again, there are exceptions. acted in response to anti-German sentiments The name Wag(g)oner, although it looks very during World War I. In general, however, trans- English, clearly indicates German ancestry be- lation was not very widespread and actually un- cause the word waggon (wagon in American usual in the wake of the German mass immi- English) was not borrowed into English from gration during the 19th century.40 Barker the Dutch until the 16th century, far too late to observed that "translation is an active factor for become productive in forming surnames in change only when little change in sound is nec- Great Britain.43 All Wag(g)oners therefore have a essary,"41 i.e., primarily in the cases of "conver- Wagner as an immigrant ancestor. sion" discussed in the following section. Only the history of the individual family can Beyond Respelling: Groping for Meaning determine whether a Carpenter or a Taylor fam- Names are often respelled in order to pro- ily descended from immigrant ancestors vide a suitable English spelling for a German named Zimmermann or Schneider. In a few cases, sound. So the name Böhm (or Boehm), pro- however, a translated name may not exist as a nounced so as to rhyme with came in Pennsylva- family name in the English-speaking world. For nia German and also in the English rendering example, the names Silknitter, Ironcutter and of the German umlaut sound) frequently be- Turnipseed, are not listed in the Dictionary of came to be spelled Bame in this country. But English Surnames by Reaney and Wilson and the process is likely to continue beyond the can safely be considered translations of the simple act of respelling. Although Bame looks German names Seidenstricker, Eisenhauer and English enough, to be comfortable people like Rübsam(en), respectively, on the basis of this evi- a name to have "meaning." The sound of Bame dence alone. will quickly bring to mind the phonetically One of the reasons behind translating is the close word beam. Indeed, there are many Penn- desire to gain a name that causes no stumbling sylvania German families by the name of Beam or offense in an English-speaking environ- that trace their ancestry back to an immigrant ment. It may, however, also lead to a name that named Böhm. According to PhoneDisc, the is not all that attractive, as the name Turnipseed name Beam holds a commanding lead in the from the German Rübsamen shows. U.S. over Bame.44 Interestingly, there are vari- ants that still retain the German h: Bahme and Substitution by Sound: Conversion even Beahm. As the discussion of Translation Pro- The importance of the factor "meaning" in nunciation (above) indicated, there is a strong the adaptation of German names to the Ameri- tendency to change the pronunciation of Ger- can environment is obvious when the history man surnames to similar sounding English of the name Böhm/Beam is compared to that of ones, a process known as "conversion."42 The Göbel/Gable. In both cases, the same vowel name Müller changed to Miller by the thou- sound is the source. In the case of Gable, the sands because it already sounded very much product of simple respelling was a meaningful like Miller. Similarly, the name Schild(t) word, so no further development took place. changed to Shield, Weber to Wea-ver, etc. Often In the case of Bame, the change of the vowel the similar sounding names are cognates, as had to be pushed a little further to arrive at a they are in these cases, but they do not have to meaningful product, hence Beam. be, as the examples Graf to Grove and of To what extremes the groping for meaning Margaret Mitchell (born Margaret Moeschl) principle can be carried is evident in the indicate. name Birckenbeuel (meaning 'hill of birch Again, in cases like these it is no longer pos- trees') which went through the stages Perka- sible to use the surname as an indication of peal, Pirkeypile and Porcabile until ending up as German ancestry; only research on the in- Porcupine.45 -31- German Surnames Folk Etymology tial letter or letters as the abandoned German The preceding example is a simple example one. In his desire to adopt an appealing stage of folk etymology, defined in Webster's Third as name, John Deutschendorf changed his name to "the transformation of words so as to give them John Denver, and George Birnbaum reappeard as an apparent relationship to other better- George Burns. Closer to his original name was known or better-understood words." Most the choice of Charles Zwick who had his name products of folk etymology are compounds. officially changed to Charles Z. Wick, known to The German name Rübsam (also Rübsamen) many as the director of the U.S. Information means 'seed of the turnip' and is originally Agency under President Reagan. A more so- a nickname for a farmer growing turnips. phisticated example is that of Charles Cist, Most occurrences in this country, according Henry Miller's partner in the printing of the to PhoneDisc, are in the forms Rubsam and German version of the Declaration of Indepen- Ruebsam. The latter allows the pronunciation dence whose birth name was Karl Jakob Sigis- [ribsαm] which is close to the German original mund Thiel. He composed his new surname from the initials of the original names, with the and will immediately bring up the concept of a 50 name composed of the elements reap and some. first one of the given names anglicized. Indeed in parts of Pennsylvania, the name IV. OTHER CHANGES Reapsome does exist.46 Mencken reports on the Todenackers in Pennsylvania who live on as the German surnames underwent a number of other changes triggered by the new linguistic Toothatchers.47 Another Pennsylvania name is environment that they encountered on the Pennypacker. This is not originally someone who American continent. That new linguistic envi- packs pennies but, as the German original ronment was not always an English-speaking Pfannebecker indicates, a maker of roof tiles. one. Germans were among the early settlers in Kirchthaler is a Palatinate name, meaning 'per- Louisiana when the predominant language was son from the village of Kirchthal' or 'person still French. Gallicised names found on the from the valley with the church.' In the Penn- "German Coast" include Chance (German sylvania German dialect, this is pronounced Schantz), Chauffe (German Schaf), Leche and ['karIç,dαl∂r] suggesting, with a shot of folk et- Laiche (German Lesch), Oubre and Ouvre (Ger- ymology added, Cashdollar — a name found man Huber) and others.51 231 times in U.S. telephone directories, ac- 48 By the same token, hiberization occurred in cording to PhoneDisc. areas predominantly Irish. Where names be- Substitution by an Unrelated Name ginning with O' or M(a)c were common, some German names lent themselves easily to Haugen reports for Norwegian immigrants change. Hence, we find O'Dekoven (from Ger- that simply abandoning an Old World name man Ödekoven) ,52 McAfoos (from German Muck- and adopting a completely unrelated English enfuss), McEnheimer (German Mückenheimer). 49 one is "not particularly common." Nor was it A common phenomenon in Colonial sur- for German immigrants. Examples are not eas- names, including English ones, is the ex- ily available for the very reason that the change crescent -s, e.g., Ames (from Oehm)53, Myers, Sny- was made: The intention was to become unrec- ders. One may think of Dutch influence where ognizable. adding the patronymic s to names is common, e.g., Meyers. Barker used the term "ornamenta- A New Name with a Link to the Old One tion" for lack of a better one.54 He applied the Those who made a drastic change often tried same label to the spreading fad of doubling to at least preserve a token of allegiance to the the final l in names such as Russell -32- German Surnames stricted to those of East Coast Jews, e.g., Engell, the conscripts rounded up for that war had Handell, Himmell, Kreidell, Markell, Vogell. Often only the vaguest idea of the spelling of their names, and not a few were uncertain as to what the stress is switched in speech without a corre- their names were, but by the time they were sponding change in the spelling, e.g., Glickel, discharged every man had a name that was Markel may be stressed on the second syllable. imbedded firmly in the official records, and he had to stick to it in order to enjoy any of the V. CONCLUSION benefits and usufructs of a veteran. On the heels of this came the general spread of life in- Name changes still take place but they are surance, a powerful stabilizing force. [...] Then minor ones. The son of a recent Swiss immi- came the automobile registration. Automobiles grant by the name of Grüter who spelled his not only changed the face of the American name Grueter in America, has decided to just landscape; they also went a long way toward use Gruter, without difficulties so far. But it is stopping changes of family names. Automobile titles soon constituted a formidable body of no longer advisable to be unconcerned about property records. [...] Every million cars meant the consequences of a name change. As another million families named for good. After Howard F. Barker put it, paraphrased and some years came Social Security. [. . .] By 1940 quoted by Mencken: American nomenclature was vastly more stable than it had been in 1910, or even in 1920."55 "[t]he surnames of the American people have been greatly stabilized by the wholesale regi- —Jürgen Eichhoff mentation introduced by World War I. Many of The Pennsylvania State University Sources Barker, Howard F. "How the American Hanks, Patrick, and Flavia Hodges. A Dictio- Changes His Name." The American Mercury nary of Surnames. Oxford, New York: Oxford 36 (1935), 101-03. U Press, 1988. Baumann, Elda Ottilie. German Surnames in Po- Haugen, Einar. The Norwegian Language in tosi. Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, America. A Study in Bilingual Behavior. 1938. [Typescript] Bloomington and London: Indiana Univer- Deiler, J. Hanno. The Settlement of the German sity Press, 1969. Coast of Louisiana and the Creoles of German Hilbig, Frederick Walter. Americanization of Ger- Descent. Philadelphia: Americana Germanica man Surnames And the Related Process of Press, 1909. Changes in Europe. M.A. thesis, University of Dictionary of American Biography. Ed. Allen Utah, 1958. [Typescript.] Johnson [et al.]. Vols. 1-22. New York: Scrib- Jones, George F. German-American Names. Balti- ner, 1928-40. more: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1990. Gerber, David A. The Making of an American Kenyon, John Samuel, and Thomas Albert Pluralism. Buffalo, New York, 1825-60. Ur- Knott. A Pronouncing Dictionary of American bana: U of Illinois Press, 1989. English. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam, 1953. Glazier, Ira A., and P. William Filby. Germans to Kuhns, Oscar. "Studies in Pennsylvania Ger- America. List of Passengers Arriving at U.S. man Family Names." Americana Germanica 4 Ports. Vol. 1- (42 so far). Wilmington: Schol- (1902): 299-341. arly Resources, 1988-. Leighly, John. German Family Names in Kentucky Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Goethe's Autobi- Place Names. New York: American Name So- ography. Poetry and Truth From My Own Life. ciety, 1983. [American Name Society Mono- Translated by R.O. Moon. Washington, graph No.2.] D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1949. Mencken, H. L. The American Language. An in- Green, M. Margaret. from trail dust to star dust. quiry into the development of English in the The Story of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a City Re- United States. Fourth ed., corrected, en- sulting from Its Environment. Johnstown, PA: larged and rewritten. New York: Knopf, Greer 1960. 1936. -33- German Surnames Mencken, H. L. The American Language. An in- Rupp, Israel Daniel. General Remarks on the Ori- quiry into the development of English in the gin of Surnames; Interpretation of Baptismal United States. Supplement II. New York: Knopf, Names, Which Occur in the Collection of Thirty 1948. Thousand Names of German, Swiss and Other Metcalf, George J. "Translation Pronunciation: Immigrants [...] Harrisburg: Scheffer, 1856. A Note on Adaption of Foreign Surnames in Webster's Third New International Dictionary the United States." Names 33 (1985): 268-70. of the English Language. Unabridged. Palatine Patter. The Newsletter of Palatines to Amer- Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1961. ica. Columbus, OH. Yoder, Donald H. "Dutchified Surnames." Al- PhoneDisc USA. Discs 1 (Residential East) and 2 lentown Morning Call Sept. 21, 1946. (Here (Residential West). Bethesda, MD: Digital cited after Mencken, The American Language. Directory Assistance, Winter 1994. [Regu- Supplement II, 410-11.) larly updated versions available.] Zoar. An Ohio Experiment in Communalism. Reaney, P. H., and R. M. Wilson. A Dictionary of Columbus: Ohio Historical Society, 1952. English Surnames. 3rd ed. London and New York: Routledge, 1991. NOTES 1This overview is based on an extensive yet possibly still though written with a different goal in mind, an over- incomplete collection of name changes compiled by the whelming record of name change possibilities is available author. A "dinner talk" version was presented at the An- in John Leighly's German Family Names in Kentucky Place nual Meeting of the Society for the History of Germans in Names. Maryland on April 18, 1995; a full-fledged book version is 5Jones, German-American Names, 53. scheduled for the near future. We use phonetic transcrip- 6Actually, we do not even know when and by whom the tions (in square brackets, [ ]) for the benefit of our readers lists were written. Glazier and Filby (Germans to America, in Germany who may not be able to guess the pronuncia- vol. 42, X; also in the preface to the other volumes) claim tion of a name in the U.S. Pointed brackets (< >) are used that "[although the manifests provide significant infor- for actual orthographic features, otherwise, letters are sim- mation about nineteenth-century immigration, we know ply printed in italics. Those readers who are not familiar little about the compilation of these lists; we do not know with these conventions may safely ignore them; care was who made the lists originally, or if there was any uniform taken to explain all pronunciations and technical terms. standard applied in collecting the data at the various 2Goethe expressed it this way: "A man's name is not a ports. Some evidence suggests that the lists were compiled cloak that merely hangs about him, and which, perchance, first by shipping agents at the port of embarkation and ini- one may safely twitch and tear, but a perfectly fitting gar- tially contained the names of all prepaid passengers; the ment, grown over and over him like his skin, which one names of additional passengers were added on board, cannot scratch and scrape without wounding the man after which clerks copied the lists before depositing them himself." Goethe's Autobiography. Poetry and Truth From My with U.S. authorities at the port of debarkation." Own Life, 356 (Part II, Book 10). 7Mencken, The American Language, 483. 3Barker, "How the American Changes His Name," 101. 8Mencken, The American Language, 482. 4The many and often curious changes which German 9So already Oscar Kuhns, "Studies in Pennsylvania Ger- surnames underwent in this country have repeatedly at- man Family Names," 320 ("sometimes"); see also Donald tracted the attention of scholars as well as laypersons. Yoder, "Dutchified Surnames" (cited after Mencken, The Oscar Kuhns calls his study of 1902 "the first treatise of the American Language, Supplement II, 410): "the immigrants kind in America," but only five pages are actually devoted and their descendants simply learned to spell their sur- to the discussion of German surname changes in America. names as they themselves pronounced them." H.L. Mencken, in his cursory but fascinating manner, pro- 10Yoder, however, suggests that it was actually the immi- vides a wealth of material especially on 479-85, 4th edition grants and their descendants themselves who brought the of The American Language, and 407-13 of Supplement II. In- respelling about. See preceding note. valuable are two unpublished academic theses which are 11Haugen, The Norwegian Language in America, 201-05. the only systematic treatments so far of German surnames 12Installed in a computer with CD-ROM drive, the two in the American environment. One is the doctoral disserta- discs list the names, addresses and telephone numbers of tion of 1938 by Elda O. Baumann on the German sur- (it is claimed) 80 to 90 percent of all residences in the names in the small Wisconsin city of Potosi, the other a U.S. The actual percentage is probably lower, and the list 1958 masters thesis by Frederick W. Hilbig which discusses contains many errors in the spelling of the names, but the Americanization of German surnames on the basis of it is nevertheless an invaluable tool for the study of evidence lifted from city directories across the country. Al- names. -34- German Surnames 13Haugen, The Norwegian Language in America, 202. in Review," makes the extra effort pronouncing his name 14The American Language, Supplement II, 407. [boυdi] while others use [boυd]. 15The Norwegian Language in America, 202. 31Mencken, The American Language, Supplement II, 412. 16The American Language, Supplement II, 409-10. 32"Dutchified Surnames," see Mencken, The American 17Metcalf, "Translation Pronunciation [. . .]," 268. Language: Supplement II, 410. Bernard J. Freitag, President of the German Society of 33Clark Gable's ancestors were indeed immigrants by the Pennsylvania in Philadelphia assures me that whereas many name of Göbel. There was no English evidence except the people including some families related to him pronounce American name for the entry Gable in Hanks and Hodges' the name [fritag], to his knowledge no one has pro- Dictionary of Surnames (personal communication by the au- nounced the name like the English name for the weekday. thor). 18German Surnames in Potosi, p.100. The pronunciation 34General John J. Pershing's ancestor Friedrich Pfoer- may have started as an American rendering of the German sching immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1749. See Mencken, umlaut [y] but its continued existence, in spite of the The American Language, 480. spelling, is remarkable nevertheless. 35In English, the name formation process just like in 19Metcalf, "Translation Pronunciation [. . .]," 268-70. German resulted in situations where a first element ending 20The city gained a place in the national consciousness in an h would be linked to a second beginning with the through the flood that swept it away in 1889 after the break same letter, as in church and hill. However, English nomen- of the Conemaugh dam. clature will not easily allow a double h. Hence, the name 21Green, from trail dust to star dust, 20-22. Churchill There are exceptions, though. In addition to 22Baumann, German Surnames in Potosi, 97. 4,794 Churchills, PhoneDisc lists thirty-six Churchhills in the 23As happened to the German parliamentarian Franz- United States. Josef Strauß who during a visit of New York was robbed of, 36Mencken, The American Language, 485. among other things, his passport by three prostitutes. For a 37Barker, "How the American Changes His Name," 102. while, the New York Police Department was unable to re- 38Gerber, The Making of an American Pluralism, 201. turn the passport to his rightful owner because the Ger- 39Mencken, The American Language: Supplement II, 411 man Consulate General did not recognize the name read (Mencken's source could not be verified.) as "Straub" as being that of the visiting dignitary. See Der 40The same observation is made by Haugen: "translation Spiegel 13/1971,25. was not a common practice among the Norwegians." The 24The umlauts are treated here as requiring respelling Norwegian Language in America, 204. because of their graphic representation and because all 41"How the American Changes His Name," 102. three umlauts, <ä>, <ö> and <ü> can then be discussed to- 42"Conversion [. . .] amounts to the adopting of a more gether. Of course, their German acoustic value is absent in familiar, similar-sounding designation." Howard F. Barker, the English language and thus requires adaptation, which "How the American Changes His Name," 101. may result in respelling also. 43Hanks and Hodges, A Dictionary of Surnames, s.v. Wag- 25Many may still be familiar with the name Larry Biit- ner. tner, a player for the Chicago Cubs. (I owe this first exam- 44Beam does exist as a surname in England, according to ple to my former Madison colleague, Donald A. Becker.) Reaney and Wilson. However, it is rare and not likely to Reimschiissel was reported by F.W. Hilbig, Americanization of have provided the "pull" that changed Bame into Beam in German Surnames [...], 41. Now, examples can be found eas- the eastern U.S. ily by checking PhoneDisc for German surnames with <ü>, 45PalatinePattern (1995), 6. replacing the <ü> with -35- sequence as rep- Preserving the Original Pronunciation, below) resenting the sound [θ] as found initially in are not taken. thin. In names such as Schultheis(s), the t and II. REVISION OF THE GERMAN NAME the h are divided by the syllable boundary in German but combined as [θ] in English, also Respelling Necessitated by German resulting in re-syllabification. Orthographic Symbols not Found in English The Letter ß. The German letter ß (pro- With Simplification of German Sound nounced es-tset, German for "s-z", the letters from Clusters which it was originally composed) stands for the The clusters consisting of the sound [J] (the "sharp" s and is found in medial and word-final initial sound in English "shore," represented position. Americans normally did not recognize the letter or mistake it for a capital B.23 is found: Donald Herbert Yoder used the term "Dutchi- Siebold>Ziebold, Kaiser>Kaizer or Kizer, fied"32 to characterize the dialect-based Neuhäuser>Nihizer. Others, such as