Ellis Island Special

Family names changed in U.S. immigration, often at Ellis Island

An Ellis Island Special is a family name that is perceived or labeled, incorrectly,^[1] as having been altered or anglicized by immigration officials at the Ellis Island immigration station when a family reached the United States, typically from Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries.^[2]^[3]^[4] In popular thought,^[5]^[6] some family lore,^[1]^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11] and literary fiction,^[3]^[12] some family names have been perceived as having been shortened by immigration officials for ease of pronunciation or record-keeping, or lack of understanding of the true name—even though name changes were made by the immigrants themselves at other times.^[1] Among the family names that are perceived as being Ellis Island Specials are some that were supposedly more identifiably Jewish, resulting in last names that were not identifiably so.^[1]^[4] Also, Germanic- and Yiddish-derived names originally spelled with an Eszett (spoken with an s sound but written ß) have been ascribed to family names like Straub (given the similarity with the letter B), which might have been said originally as Strauss in the Old World.

The phrase "Ellis Island Special" has also been adopted by some food vendors and applied to sandwiches, among other foods.^[13]

History

According to the history professor Kirsten Fermaglich, the idea that Ellis Island officials changed immigrants' names "did not become an important image in published literature until around 1970",^[14] decades after Ellis Island had ceased to serve as an immigration arrival station. The influential 1974 film The Godfather Part II imagined that the fictional Sicilian boy Vito Andolini was assigned the name Vito Corleone by an Ellis Island official.^[14] Professional genealogist Megan Smolenyak blamed the perpetuation of the myth on that film as well as on "immigrant grandfathers who enjoyed spinning yarns to confuse their offspring".^[15] As the earlier tendency toward cultural assimilation among American Jews transitioned into ethnic pride, a false narrative of victimization arose that contended that name-changing was something done to Jewish immigrants against their will to de-Judaize them rather than having been the choice of the immigrants themselves.^[16]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Horn, Dara (Summer 2010). "The Myth of Ellis Island and Other Tales of Origin". Azure (41). ISSN 0829-982X. Retrieved June 13, 2011.
^ Murtha, Tara (August 6, 2008). "Laptop Anthropologist: Meeting my sister from another mister". Philadelphia Weekly. Archived from the original on January 31, 2013. Retrieved June 10, 2011.
^ ^a ^b Maniaty, Tony (1989). Smyrna: a novel. Penguin Books Australia. p. 135. ISBN 9780140124361. Retrieved June 10, 2011.
^ ^a ^b Toor, Rachel (April 2011). "Riding an Elephant". Ascent. Concordia College. Archived from the original on August 25, 2011. Retrieved June 10, 2011.
^ Christensen, Linda (2000). Reading, writing, and rising up: teaching about social justice and the power of the written word. Rethinking Schools. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-942961-25-6. Retrieved June 20, 2011.
^ Caracciolo, Mike; Benson, Michael (2007). Go F*** Yourself: The Kid from Brooklyn's Rants and Other Stuff. Citadel Press. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-8065-2865-6.
^ Gertz, Kaitlin; Gertz, Thomas (October 28, 2007). "Around the world in 500 days". North County Times. Archived from the original on January 29, 2013. Retrieved June 10, 2011.
^ Cohen, Leah Hager (1994). Train go sorry: inside a deaf world. Houghton Mifflin. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-395-63625-1.
^ Bell, Charles Greenleaf (2006). Millennial Harvest: the life and collected poems of Charles Greenleaf Bell. Lumen Books. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-930829-60-5. Retrieved June 10, 2011.
^ Gorenberg, Gershom (March 2, 2008). "How Do You Prove You're a Jew?". The New York Times. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
^ Comden, Betty (1995). Off Stage. Simon & Schuster. p. 20. ISBN 978-0671705794.
^ Schneider, Ilene (2007). Chanukah Guilt. Swimming Kangaroo Books. p. 310. ISBN 978-1-934041-31-4.
^ Pahigian, Joshua; O'Connell, Kevin (2004). The Ultimate Baseball Road-Trip: A Fan's Guide to Major League Stadiums. Globe Pequot. p. 378. ISBN 978-1-59228-159-6. Retrieved June 10, 2011.^{[permanent dead link]}
^ ^a ^b Fermaglich, Kirsten Lise (2018). A Rosenberg by Any Other Name: A History of Jewish Name Changing in America. New York: New York University Press. p. 148. ISBN 978-1-4798-6720-2.
^ Smolenyak, Megan (2012). Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing. New York: Citadel Press. p. 169. ISBN 978-0-8065-3446-6.
^ Fermaglich, Kirsten Lise (2018). A Rosenberg by Any Other Name: A History of Jewish Name Changing in America. New York: New York University Press. pp. 132–133, 148–150. ISBN 978-1-4798-6720-2.