Ask Richard Steven Valenzuela (Richie Valens)
But you could also ask Norma Jean Baker.
In the 50’s everybody had a relative on the Mayflower.
Ira Garfunkle uses “Art”.
****Can we agree that there could not have been all that much name “Americanization” pressure on the Duke Mens’ Basketball coach and his forebears?
I mean, the guy doesn’t even pronounce his name like an American: zhehZHEVski. **ZH **???
It is also the word for a linear diacrit mark, so it applies to the accent, and in some Hispanophone countries’ educational system the written mark is primarily called that way.
In the example given there is something else going on – among US Anglophones the word “Muñoz” tends to be pronounced upon reading as MUN-yoz, stress in the first syllable, which in Spanish would get the mark, rather than “mun-YOZ” which would be closer to the Spanish norm and does not get the mark.
But this does bring up another issue, which is that due to the rather spartan character set of American English a lot of names lost unusual letters and diacrits in the simple act of recording. The Polish ł (makes the sound of an English w) would become a common “l”; ç a common C or else a Z; the Scandinavian ø, Å, etc. would get turned into a plain o or A and so forth; tildes, circumflexes, macrons, umlauts would be dropped; and if your mother tongue was written in nonlatin script you’d get an approximation, if there was no written guide at hand (and the written guide may or may not have been that precise anyway).
Stage names aren’t the same thing.
That “Godfather 2” still rears it’s ugly head!
Around the midwestern US, a lot of families shortened names, usually dropping -owski or -inski, or -witz or -wicz. It does show up in family burial plots.
I’m not as familiar with Italian names as with Polish, Czech, and various Slavic names.
By the time 1950 rolled around, there wasn’t too much Americanization happening to German last names, save an errant umlaut or two. First names are another story.
Yeah I’ve had this conversation before. When I say accent, someone corrects me that it describes only the way someone pronounces, when I say tilde they tell me it means that squiggly line, which for ñ wasn’t even squiggly before computers. I’ve also been told I should say accent aigu or acute accent, which refer to French. So long as people know what I mean, whatever.
The Ortografía says the articles and prepositions which are part of lastnames do not get capitalized. Hence, Luis del Olmo or your friend’s own spelling are academically correct whereas the phonebook is not. My guess would be that the book was set with the “autocorrect to start with caps” on and the only names which have been reset are those where people have bothered to complain.
Yes, the proper form would have two des. The custom is disappearing, but some of the names you get in 19th century novels almost had chapters of their own…
Berta María Bermúdez de la Rosa could be using:
- the single lastname Bermúdez de la Rosa,
- first lastname Bermúdez, followed by second de la Rosa,
- her own Bermúdez followed by de followed by her husband’s la Rosa.
To know which, you need to ask. Worst case scenario, she’ll have a first lastname of María, second of Bermúdez, and her husband’s first is la Rosa (why make things simple? This is names, not engineering…). María isn’t a lastname I’ve encountered before, and many of the ones which are firstnames are male names, but you never know.
Berta María Bermúdez de de la Rosa is ugly as all heck (a novelist wouldn’t give a character such a name unless they hated her mightily) but it makes it clear that the lady is using her first lastname, followed by de, followed by her husband’s de la Rosa. When said out loud, the first de is emphasized.
In English, the mark over an accented Spanish vowel is an “accent” or “acute accent.” The mark over a Spanish ñ is a “tilde,” usually. (And of course the Portuguese call it something else when it’s a nasalization sign. Til?) Saying, “Muñoz doesn’t have a tilde,” is puzzling, because obviously the ñ does have one.
I think I have probably seen English texts (from before the present century) refer to a “virgulilla” at some point, but I don’t know when.
Like I said, my experience is that, no matter what I call it, someone will disagree. I call it whatever comes to mind at the time and await the disagreements.
So how did the stetl Jew Sean Fergesen get such a name when he arrived in the US?
/I intend to keep asking this when apropos in a thread until someone responds appropriately…
Actually what I was thinking of was people just rolling with transcription errors, Pterowichz became Perowicz? Eh just roll with it!
But even that may be inaccurate.
Well, actually he’s Arthur Ira Garfunkle, so “Art” is no surprise. 
There’s an entire book on the special cases of people who changed their first names but not their family or last names. Much more interesting situations.
Not because anyone in US immigration changed it or “got it wrong.” Such is an absolute myth and any historian on the staff at Ellis Island will explain it in as much detail as you’d like.
Can I point out that not everyone came here via Ellis Island?
I don’t know how much is quite that the older people don’t have Spanish first names, but rather go by “Raymond” instead of “Ramon”, or “Roy” instead of Rojelio, or even Jesse for Jesus.
Still, Spanish first names are so common in Texas that nobody I know gives it a second thought- we all know how to pronounce them- nobody’s calling some guy “Jeezus Rodriguez”; it’s well known that it’s “Hay-seus Rodriguez”, just like it’s not “Migwell” it’s “Meeg-ell”.
The staff there are among the pinnacle experts on US immigration history, regardless of the entry point. The trope about agents changing immigrant names bugs them a lot, specifically because it’s so false-to-fact. Also because it is, and always would have been, illegal on several levels.
When I was in grad school I was one of the only native English speakers so my advisor would often ask me to help acclimate the 3 or 4 new grad students he got from china every year.
The very first meeting would have us all in a room and he would ask their names, then he would point at each one in turn and say “From now on you’re Pete, Jim, Tom…”
Apparently it was the thinking at the time that having an easy to pronounce first name would make it easier for their professors and colleagues to interact with them without the embarrassment of constantly mispronouncing their names.
I would not be surprised at all to find out this practice has stopped.
Tones is the least of it. My wife’s family name is “Cao”, which you might kinda sorta pronounces as “ts” sound. Invariably, she gets called “Cow” as in “moo”. Frankly “sow” would be closer.
IMHO most Chinese adopt an “American” style name for convenience and to avoid being tortured by hearing their name so mispronounced. Plenty of folks think the names they choose are pretty fun. Oddly enough, many go by their American names professionally in China.
I can recognize the age of many Chinese or Taiwanese by their American names. For example, if their American name is Rocky, Rambo or Stallone, then I’m 99% sure they were teenagers in the early 1980s. 