On 5/4/05 (1:09:59 PM MDT), Christopher Gray ([log in to unmask]) asked, "When my grandfather came over from Holland - speaking no English - in 1890, no immigration official changed his name from Riepma to, say, Roberts. When the architect Gaetan Ajello came over in 1906, no one changed his name to Adams. What was it about European Jewish immigrants - many of whom did not speak Yiddish or Hebrew or use a "different" alphabet - that caused officials to change their names so frequently?" One of the reasons is that, under Jewish law, custom and practice, a Jewish baby does not receive a name until the 8th day (which for boys is the circumcision day), while states, such as New York, required a name within 3 days. (If the baby dies before the 8th day, than, under Jewish law, custom and practice, it is buried without a name.) So, in many cases, either the midwife, doctor or the hospital (depending on whether it was home delivery or in a birthing hospital) put a 'temporary' name on the birth certificate, that later needed to be changed, or the name placed on the birth certificate was a bad English equivalent of the Jewish birth name and needed to be changed. For example, my mother's birth name was Brwyna bas Yuseph and while my grandmother wanted the name to be 'Bernice', the doctor put down 'Bertha', but my mother later changed this to 'Beatrice'. I hope this information is useful or, at least, interesting. Regards, Walter Greenspan