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Did any of your relatives change their last names?

MoodyBlues

MoodyBlues

Compassion is cool!
VIP Member
I don't know why, but I've been really focused on this lately--wondering why my maternal grandparents changed their name. Well, not exactly WHY--I know the story behind that (they were Armenian, came to this country, and wanted to Americanize their name)--but why they chose the surname they did. My mom said she didn't know why/how they chose it, but that was hard for me to believe, as she was privy to pretty much everything they did. I knew there was a movie with that name in its title a few years before they chose it, and I asked Mom if that was where they got it from, but she said no. :hmmmm:

Anyway, I'm just wondering if anyone else here has close (or even not so close) ancestors who changed their names and, if so, what the story is behind that (if you know).

On a related note, would you consider changing your name? If so, why? (I wouldn't. It would seem so weird getting used to a random, unrelated name.)
 
Well, I just woke up and memory is foggy but I believe my wife's mother's side changed their name slightly when they came from Ireland.
AFAIK, neither of my folks' families changed their name when coming from England/Ireland (I've boring ancestry).
I left the decision up to my wife to take my last name when we got married. She said no at the time but perhaps in the future. Honestly, I could care less. If/when we have children, that would be a different story though...:)
 
breadnatty08 said:
Well, I just woke up and memory is foggy but I believe my wife's mother's side changed their name slightly when they came from Ireland.
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Thanks.

AFAIK, neither of my folks' families changed their name when coming from England/Ireland (I've boring ancestry).
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:)

I left the decision up to my wife to take my last name when we got married. She said no at the time but perhaps in the future. Honestly, I could care less. If/when we have children, that would be a different story though...:)
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You can always do the hyphenation thing. But you know what I wonder about that? Let's say John Smith marries Jane Jones, and they become Smith-Jones. Their child, Mary Smith-Jones grows up and marries Richard Brooks-Martin. Are they now Smith-Jones-Brooks-Martin? :eek: :laugh: Seriously, though, where does that stop? :confused:
 
Will never ever do the hyphenation thing. Can't stand it. ;)
One of our friends is so adamant about if/when she gets married (she's been dating this guy for a while now who's divorced with two boys) that she would NEVER take his last name. Furthermore, if they have a child together, he/she would have HER last name. It's actually quite silly.
Having said that, I'm not sure if I would take my wife's last name. Part of it is the flow of first and last names would be a little weird. :o
(sorry, I know we're getting off track here)
 
breadnatty08 said:
Will never ever do the hyphenation thing. Can't stand it. ;)
One of our friends is so adamant about if/when she gets married (she's been dating this guy for a while now who's divorced with two boys) that she would NEVER take his last name. Furthermore, if they have a child together, he/she would have HER last name. It's actually quite silly.
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It gets complicated once kids are involved. I understand women wanting to keep their own name, especially if they're known in their field, but once kids are involved, I don't know, I kind of like the idea of everyone in the family having the same name. But to each their own, I guess.

Having said that, I'm not sure if I would take my wife's last name. Part of it is the flow of first and last names would be a little weird. :o
(sorry, I know we're getting off track here)
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I [heart] thread drift. :D
 
My wife's folks are remarried. Her step mother didn't take her father's name for one reason: They were both professors at U of Illinois and in the same department. Didn't want students knowing openly they were married and thus affected how they were graded. ;)
Now that they've moved and her father is retired, they've adopted and their daughter has taken his last name. Nice and complicated, no? :)
 
I gather no one is from Iceland.

Human Naming Patterns in Iceland by Cindy Abbate | Life Paths 360


Iceland’s people are proud of their country and its traditions. The naming patterns are simple. The last name consists of the person’s father’s first name with the word son (sonur) or daughter(dottir)added. So Jonsdottir means Jon’s daughter. This is a patronymic tradition carried on from generation to generation. Although a woman may adopt a husband’s last name it is not a common practice. Most people keep their last names throughout their lifetimes.

Jonson and Jonsdottir are brother and sister.
 
My maternal grandfather had his last name changed when he was orphaned. He doesn't remember his original last name, he was too young. He was put in an orphanage and given the city name as his last name. It was common practice in Italy at the time.
 
It can get even more complicated if you're Slave decendents. We traced our family history as far back as the 1700s. I'm sure the family named changed quite a bit from then until the late 1800. My mom's parents surname is Stewart, so that's the current family name.
 
saptech said:
It can get even more complicated if you're Slave decendents.
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I can just imagine.

We traced our family history as far back as the 1700s.
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That's amazing! Good for you. :)

It's hard for me to make much progress on my family history because of the number of ancestors from 'the old country' (where records weren't kept, or were destroyed, etc.). Some years ago I did track down the ship's manifest from my maternal grandparents' arrival in the US. Ellis Island had their last name misspelled, so finding it wasn't easy. I sent a picture of my grandfather's gravestone with the correct spelling, and it's now correct. But on Ancestry.com I never get far at all. :(
 
EarlyMon said:
Ellis Island was responsible for a lot of changes, especially if you came in using a different alphabet.
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Yes, very true. In my grandparents' case, though, it was a simple transcription error. The person who entered it into their database mistook an "s" for an "a".

On a related note, it's really interesting looking at the types of questions new arrivals had to answer at Ellis Island. A few examples:

- By whom was passage paid?
- Condition of health, mental and physical.
- Deformed or crippled. Nature, length of time, and cause.
- The name and complete address of nearest relative or friend in country whence alien came.
 
My sir name is Roles. I've spent many years investigating my ancestors. I became a Roles instead of Rolls in a 1850 Census. All prior paper trail has my family as Rolls. I don't know if it was purposely changed in 1850 or it was a clerical error. All family has been Roles ever since. One has to keep in mind that my family and many others were illiterate in the early days. They were at the mercy of those keeping the records.
 
olbriar said:
My sir name is Roles. I've spent many years investigating my ancestors. I became a Roles instead of Rolls in a 1850 Census. All prior paper trail has my family as Rolls. I don't know if it was purposely changed in 1850 or it was a clerical error. All family has been Roles ever since. One has to keep in mind that my family and many others were illiterate in the early days. They were at the mercy of those keeping the records.
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I can see how that might happen. If the person recording things said the name out loud--and pronounced it correctly--and then asked if that was right, the family would say yes. How the person then went about recording the spelling is anyone's guess.

BTW, are you sure you're not part of the Rolls-Royce line? :D
 
MoodyBlues said:
BTW, are you sure you're not part of the Rolls-Royce line? :D
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I'm still looking for THAT particular clerical error :D

My wife's family was Muller and migrated from Bohemia in the mid 1800's to the US. They changed their name to Miller at Ellis.

My mother's family was German and their name was Marbry which became Mayberry in the US.

I think a lot of families trying to fit in changed their names a bit.
 
sometime in i guess the 30s one side of the family name got "americanized" at ellis. the people working there just chose a more american sounding version of a not so un-american sounding name.

And i'd probably only change my name if i had to go on the run, or become some kind of super spy.
 
olbriar said:
I'm still looking for THAT particular clerical error :D
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Good luck! If you should find it, can I be your long-lost cousin or something? :laugh:

My wife's family was Muller and migrated from Bohemia in the mid 1800's to the US. They changed their name to Miller at Ellis.

My mother's family was German and their name was Marbry which became Mayberry in the US.
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Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

I think a lot of families trying to fit in changed their names a bit.
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The thing about my grandparents that strikes me as odd is that they were in the US for more than 20 years and THEN decided to change their name. I don't know, just something about that seems odd to me. My mom said they wanted to blend in better (they owned a business), but after 20+ years? :confused: It never made sense to me. Also, the name they chose ends with the same sound that all Armenian names end with...so if they wanted to make their Armenian origins less obvious, why didn't they change their name to something like Smith?!
 
A lot had to do with ethnic spelling. A non-German speaker has NO idea how to deal with that umlaut, and after buying a Czech phone from Amazon, with the diacritical marks it has, the usual thing is not to understand how to deal with it. I accidently put the phone into Bulgarian. Android does keep stuff in the same spot regardless of language.
If your native language is written in Cyrillic, heaven help you.
 
Well i Know my Great Grand dad did when he came over from Germany , if he didn't i'd probably have one of those hard to pronounce names :D





The first time i saw him i seriously did not expect him to be related to me but that's how it goes :D
 
Something else I just thought about that makes me scratch my head: my grandfather's gravestone has their original name on it--but my grandmother's mausoleum gravestone has their new name. :confused:
 
My last name has stayed the same throughout my family's history.
My least name has it origins in France but my family came from Irelend in the 1700's
On my Grandma's side they did change there names from Mickey to Glenneman or Gleneman depending on who ever filled out the birth records lol
 
MLSS said:
My last name has stayed the same throughout my family's history.
My least name has it origins in France but my family came from Irelend in the 1700's
On my Grandma's side they did change there names from Mickey to Glenneman or Gleneman depending on who ever filled out the birth records lol
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I suppose the reason why would be important to talk about lol

My Grandmal Alice's family were horse thrives and they stowed away in barrels to get to the United States.
 
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