Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Pronouncing your name in another language
Message-ID: <1995Jan16.062954.4959@midway.uchicago.edu>
Sender: news@uchinews.uchicago.edu (News System)
Reply-To: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago
References: <D2H67L.79C@indirect.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 06:29:54 GMT
Lines: 35

In article <D2H67L.79C@indirect.com> stevemac@bud.indirect.com (Pascal MacProgrammer) writes:
>Not so very long ago, deb5@midway.uchicago.edu said...
>
>>One factor that complicates matters in the US is the existence of
>>a large pool of "naturalised" family names that are no longer pro-
>>nounced like their antecedents.  One cannot describe these pronunci-
>>ations are wrong because, regardless of their origins, they are the
>>ones preferred by the bearers of the names themselves.
>
>  And then there are the names that get changed by the US Department of 
>Immigration as people enter the country.

And then there are names once changed by the D of I that have been
restored to their original forms.  I think, for example, of one of 
the co-authors of _The Book of Lists_, a Mr. Walleczynski, if I remem-
ber correctly.  His father, also a co-author, still goes by the form
'Wallace.'

>  A friend of mine had some trouble at Customs when visiting Ireland.  
>His last name is "O'Green", and since that looks like an Irish name, but 
>there's no such name in Ireland, they delayed him while they checked out 
>his background, in case he was a terrorist trying to pass himself off as 
>Irish.  It's actually an American name, created when his grandfather 
>immigrated from Denmark.  Granddad's name was "0gren".

A co-worker of mine has the hobbitish surname "Oakleaf."  It's an
anglicisation of 'Eklauf' perpetrated by her great-grandfather,
who was fleeing the authorities when he arrived on these shores.  The
vast majority of Eklaufs in the States have kept the original spelling
if not the original pronunciation (something like ['eklWf] or ['eklWYf],
depending on where they're from).
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
