Did U.S. immigration ever change immigrants last names?

Question

I was told by my father that our family last name was changed from Erickson to Allen because there were too many Ericksons coming over on the boat. This would have been in the late 19th century I believe. This sounded plausable for most of my life until today when an Irish guy I work with casually metioned that Allen was an Irish last name. I had always assumed it to be English. Many people throughout my life had always said my siblings and I looked Irish and I had to correct them and say I was of Sweedish descent. Now I'm questioning. Was somebody snowed along the way somewhere and I really am Irish.
Any help would be great.

Thanks

Answer 1

Yes they did. But not for the reason given. They turned strange last names into American sounding names.

Answer 2

During what I will term the "Great Exodus" from other lands during that time period, many names were muddled and/or misspelled. Yours does not sound as though that were the case, however. A name such as Erickson is unlikely to be misspelled. Are you certain that someone in that group did not have the middle name of Allen or a female having the last name of Allen before marriage?

Many a Mediterranean and Northeastern European name, as well as others, were misspelled or could not be read clearly enough so that it could be transcribed properly. Given the language barriers of the time the communication between the two factors weighed heavily when it came to mistakes being made.

I don't really think anyone was "snowed" and you can always check the records at Ellis Island to be certain. Unfortunately you'll have to have all the necessary information in order to do so. The ethnicity of Allen, Allan and Alan, per http://genealogy.about.com/library/surnames/bl_surnames-e.htm, are Scottish and not Irish as your co-worker stated and Erickson is not listed although I know the name to be of Nordic derivation and may very well be Swedish. Any genealogy site will be helpful. Good Luck!

Answer 3

Yes, it happened in my family.
A "T" was replaced w/ an "L" .
Found out by accident when another relative visited the "Ellis Island" site.
The processors at the intake center ( not the brightest) often "anglisized" foreign names or just spelled them phonetically....son, sen ,sohn etc
Sure there were more than a few cruel jokes played by bored
agents to break up the day also.
The Ellis Island site mentiioned, is a good place to start unless your ancestors arrived elsewhere or before the facility opened.
If there is a name, port of departure & dates it can be narrowed down somewhat.
The searches are free , but anything more detailed will have a fee.
Might try Geneaology .com also.
Best regards

Answer 4

Sometimes it was a case of a spelling error. Many of the early immigrants couldn't even write their own name, and the person taking the information would spell it the way it sounded. Then there were cases an immigrant did intentionally change the spelling, or change the name all together.

Answer 5

I family name was changes also. i am not going to post it becasue I dont want to let it out. But back in the days of Ellis Island a lot of names were changed. I dont know of any for te reason you stated but many were spelled differently or writen down wrong. What ever the Immigration agent put down was what your name was.

Answer 6

Yes, changing the spelling of last names was a very common thing because it made it easier for immigrants who had hard-to-spell-or say names to have their papers processed more quickly. Bear in mind, though, that some people's last names get changed through marriage or just through personal preference. Also, many people cannot accurately judge ethnic ancestry or are even mistaken about their own ethnic identities.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=377839&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=&ct=5

http://www.chinadaily.net/en/doc/2003-12/29/content_294229.htm

Again, this often has to do with immigration or racial intermarriage. Genetics can be very odd, and changes in a family's last name of origin often do reflect that racial intermixing.

Also, many Native Americans changd their names to 'white' ones. Sometimes they were forced to do this; sometimes they were not. It all mostly had to do with how much and by exactly which means they were 'assimilated' into white society.

Answer 7

I don't know about any particular cases (except for my own ancestors) but names were definitely changed. Usually by mistake; ignorant people nowadays can't seem to spell any name correctly, so most likely it was a truth back then as well. Many names were Anglicized, either by election of the immigrant or the officials they had to deal with.

Answer 8

Changes did happen, but it was often a shortening or change in spelling to the name. I've never heard of anything as drastic as the name change you are suggesting.

However, there is also a significant amount of Norse blood in most Irish, thanks to the Norse colonies of the Middle Ages, so appearance alone might not be enough to go on.

Answer 9

Yes,it happened all the time. The officials filling out the paperwork did not like certain names, especially long names they had to write over and over. Remember, they were dipping ink into an inkwell with a pen... so a name like "Wilmenhemeir" was shortened to " Wilkes" or
"Meirs" simply because the official did not want to write all those letters. It was just to make things easier and faster at Ellis Island.

Answer 10

I know many immigrants changed their own names because they: a. wanted them to sound more american or b. there were too many other people with the same last name. I'm not sure though, whether or not the American government actually changed immigrants names as they came over.

Answer 11

Names changed all the time. Sometimes it was as you stated, sometimes it was miscommunication, sometimes immigrants wanted a new identity (for various reasons), and sometimes it happened because letters in some languages didn't equate to the English alphabet, sometimes changes came about through misread hand writing, and sometimes immigrants chose to anglicize their names. My maiden name was one of the casualties of the language & alphabet barrier - my great-grandparents spelled it VERY differently than what is recorded in U.S. records (and is the legal spelling today that my family uses).

EDIT: Just an FYI for anyone who has ancestors that had names mis-recorded at Ellis Island - if you contact them, they will notate the correct names on their records (alongside the mis-spelled version). www.ellisisland.org