Language naming terminology)

On Tue, 22 Sep 1998 13:42:18 -0400 Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> writes:
>Anyways, is this a common phenomenon in other cultures, or is this
>largely restricted to Anglo-Saxon cultures?  Also, is the normal
>method
>of Anglicization simply changing the sound?  I know of some cases
>where
>people's first names became surnames.  A friend of mine in high school
>had the last name of Marx - his ancestor's first name was Max, and
>when
>he was asked his name, that's what he replied - /maks/ (with a back
>vowel), thinking they wanted his first name, as opposed to surname,
>and
>the immigration official thought he said "Marx".  I suspect this is
>probably very rare, tho?
Nope, it's not restricted to English-speaking cultures....in Israel, for
instance, many people changed their lastnames, especially from European
ones, into more Hebrew ones.
A friend of mine's last name is _Degani_, from _dagan_ (grain) + _-i_,
(-ian/-ish/etc.).  Her grandfather(?) changed it to Degani from something
like Weitzman, where the _weitz_ means something like "wheat".  Talking
about Weitzmans, my paternal ancestor 7 generations up, according to the
legend, had the name Weitzman/Veitzman, i don't know how it should be
spelled, but for a totally different reason, the _weitz_ coming from a
word meaning "white".  Well, he ended up moving to Russia, where they
forced him to Russianize his name, turning it into something like
_B(y?)elskiy_, _byel(ye?)_ "white" as in Belarus + _skiy_.  Which then
became Belsky here in the U.S.
My mother's family also is full of changed names.  Her father's last
name, Zack, was an anglicization of something like Zicheriwitz, and i
think her mother's side of the family also changed their name, but i'm
not sure.

-Stephen (Steg)

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