The American Language
/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