The story Trish recounts needs to be located within the bureaucratic
contest of the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  There
was no "register with the state" in the US comparable to that in Eastern
or Southern Europe.  What ever happened during the processing at Ellis
Island or other ports of entry, the immigrants exited with no
documentation which could have recorded a "new name."  Once settled in
the country, there could be encounters with the State where a name would
be recorded, responding to a census taker, registering children at
school, etc.  While names could be brutalized in these records, the
process again did not leave the immigrant with a document recording a
new name.   Other activities might result is this thought.  Applying for
naturalization, or for a business license would involve the immigrant in
an official process which would impose upon him or her an "official"
name.  The decisions concerning change or continuity in a family name
were complex and taken over a period of time.  In the work I have done,
there is no single common point where they were made.

John W. Briggs
Education and History
Chair, Cultural Foundations of Education
Coordinator, Social Studies Education Programs
363 Huntington Hall
Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY 13244
315-446-9077
Fax 315-443-9218

>>> [log in to unmask] 5/9/2005 12:40:21 PM >>>
It is my understanding that many European Jews had no fixed 
patronymics. They were using the traditional system of using 
the given name of his/her father: Samuel ben Jacob or Sarah 
bar Jabob would be the children of Jacob. Samuel's son would 
be "ben Samuel." Napoleon as part of his decrees across the 
empire in the early nineteenth-century imposed a system of 
fixed patronymics. Poland instituted official fixed state 
names in 1821 and Russia in 1844. People chose a range of 
arbitrary names--their village, natural objects (rose, stone, 
mountain) for registration with the state, while thinking of 
the traditional naming system as their real name. Therefore, 
several generations later, they arrived at Ellis Island, once 
more they had to formally register with the state, and chose 
some other symbolic name--for instance, "Eagle" or willingly 
Anglicized their former state name. Their "real" name 
remained the same.

Cheers,
Trish



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