By Caitlin Hollander

There is a joke that I am almost required to begin this with- and so I will, because I cannot resist a joke, especially not one so well-worn as this:

A Jewish man arrives at Ellis Island. He has been told by his brother, who is already in America, that one should take a new name for their new country. He thinks and thinks, and finally settles on Sam Cohen- it is American, but still Jewish.

Pleased by his choice, he begins his walk up massive flights of stairs carrying his heavy bags. He runs his new name through his head as he walks, committing it to memory. He finally reaches the top of the stairs and is overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle. An immigration officer barks out to him, “NAME?”

The Jew is caught off guard, and flustered, replies “Shoyn fargesin” (“I’ve already forgotten” in Yiddish).

And so the immigration official dutifully writes down his answer, and Sean Ferguson begins his life in America.

We know this scene very well- it’s ingrained in our culture from movies like The Godfather Part II to jokes like the one I related above. Likewise, we are told by our grandparents “oh, the name was changed at Ellis Island”. And at first glance, it seems to be true- from mobsters (Meyer Lansky was born Meier Suchowlanski) to actors (Jack Benny was Benjamin Kubelsky), everyone seems to have come to America with a different name. This story is an accepted part of the early 20th century immigrant experience- that immigration officials changed the names of immigrants due to racism, misunderstandings, an attempt to “Americanize”, or simply because they did not care.

But none of it is true- simply put, it is one of the greatest urban legends ingrained in the modern American psyche. The commonly given reasons behind these supposed name changes do not hold up to the historical facts of immigration through Ellis Island.

The names recorded at Ellis Island were taken directly from the passenger manifests, which were made up at the port of departure. In addition, Ellis Island employed a number of interpreters who spoke the immigrants’ native languages. In 1911, Commissioner William Williams wrote to Washington, providing both the number of interpreters for each language and asking for funding to hire more.

“Languages known by interpreters: Arabic (2), Albanian (2), Armenian (2), Bohemian Czech (4), Bosnian (1), Bulgarian (5), Croatian (7), Dalmatian (2), Danish (2), Dutch (1), Finnish (1), Flemish (1), French (14), German (14), Greek (8), Herzegovinian (1), Italian (11), Lithuanian (2), Macedonian (1), Hungarian (4), Montenegrin (4), Moravian Czech (1), Norwegian (2), Persian (1), Polish (6), Portuguese (1), Rumanian (4), Russian (6), Ruthenian (4), Serbian (6), Slovak (7), Slovenian (2), Spanish (2), Swedish (3), Turkish (6), and Yiddish (9).”

And in 1914, the chief medical officer, Dr. L.L. Williams wrote to Washington describing his requirements for new interpreters:

“The languages with which they should be familiar are named below in the order of their importance, viz.: Italian, Polish, Yiddish and German, Greek, Russian, Croatian and Slovenian, Lithuanian, Ruthenian and Hungarian. Each of the five interpreters should be able to speak at least two of the languages named and it is very desirable that all of those named should be spoken by the fine interpreters collectively, if practicable.

In addition to these languages, knowledge of Portuguese, Spanish, French, Turkish and Syrian, and Scandinavian languages would increase the usefulness of any of the candidates.”

In short, especially for Jewish immigrants, there was absolutely someone at the port of entry who not only spoke their language but were specifically assigned to interpret for them- often immigrants or children of immigrants themselves. In addition, the manifests were made up at the port of departure, not at the port of entry, and the names were copied down directly from said original manifests- not written down by a clerk at the port of entry.

Passenger manifest for the SS Kroonland, arriving at Ellis Island on September 16, 1913. On the third, fourth, and fifth line are passengers listed as Chaie Lubstein, and her children Mordche and Abram.

The author’s great grandfather, Murray Laubstein’s 1936 petition for naturalization, where he notes that he entered the US as Abram Lubstein.

But a more practical barrier existed to a permanent name change being made at Ellis Island in the early 20th century, and one that we do not think of in the age of digitization. Once you left Ellis Island, there was nothing indicated what name you had entered under, at least nothing that would matter in your day to day life. Depending on the era in which they had come to America, the immigrant might never see what name they had entered under. Alien Registration Forms were only created in 1940. Even when applying for citizenship, you provided first, the name you went by and second, the name under which you entered the US (as seen in the petition for naturalization above). The assumption was that the former was now your legal name. After 1906, when nationwide standardization of the process was instituted, you had to simply provide affidavits from witnesses that had known you in the US for 5 years- later on, proofs of arrival were included in petitions for naturalization, but this part of the process was only slowly adapted. And no ID existed at the time for a job, school, or housing to require. If the immigrant from the joke at the beginning of this article walked out of Ellis Island and introduced himself as Sam Cohen, no one would stop him- because who would know?

Part 2 of this blog post will give examples of situations in which immigrants’ names were changed, and discuss why this myth became so prevalent in the collective American consciousness