Were Immigrants' Names Really Changed At Ellis Island?

Did careless officials accidentally change immigrants' names on Ellis Island? Why do we think they did? Why did immigrants; names change at all? In this episode we learn all about immigration on Ellis Island and this interesting myth!

Sources

Transcript

Tzeela: Hi I'm Tzeela and I'm 17

Rina: Hi I'm Rina and I'm 15

Dalia: Hey, I'm Dalia and I'm 11

All: And this is Things You Thought You Knew About History!


Rina: When immigrants came to Ellis Island, they would answer questions from busy officials. The officials would often write the wrong name, maybe something similar but not the immigrant's actual name. This could be due to them mishearing, rushing, or writing an Americanized version of the name. That’s why so many people’s names were changed.

Dalia: That’s actually really true.

Rina: Really? But I’ve heard so many people say this has happened to their families.

Dalia: Some people do have different names than they had originally but this isn’t because of immigration officials at Ellis Island.

Tzeela: Ellis Island was a hub for immigration, it first opened in 1892, and in its first year, almost 450,00 immigrants came through the island. In 1897 a fire destroyed earlier records and a new fireproof facility was opened in 1900.

Rina: During its peak from 1900 to 1914 an average of 1,900 people came through Ellis Island each day. During this time they created two new islands to have enough space and a hospital and contagious disease ward.

Dalia: In 1917 when the US joined WWI anti-immigration views increased. The Immigration Act of 1924 was passed, and set strict immigration quotas or limits and required immigrants to get visas before coming to the US. Ellis Island started receiving fewer and fewer immigrants. In 1954 Ellis Island was officially closed.

Rina: People’s names were already written down before they came to Ellis Island, often before they even got on the boat to come to the US.

Dalia: At that time boat rides were a whole industry, similar to airlines today. People who wanted to go somewhere would have to find agents and book tickets. They needed to give these agents information which would then be added to the list of people on the ships or the ship's manifest, this was used to ensure that only people who paid got on the boat. The manifest was later given to officials at the ports.

Rina: This was an organized process and business, people had to be able to pay for tickets. At that time even some of the lowest class tickets, steerage class tickets, could cost a lot of money. Today, it would be almost a thousand dollars.

Tzeela: When ships got to Ellis Island they were required to give officials the ship’s manifest. Immigration officials would then check names off this list. They never wrote any names down, they only confirmed from what was already listed.

Dalia: This was an official list so the immigration officials weren’t allowed to make any changes to it without going through the proper procedure. Immigrants would then be questioned and information from the lists would be confirmed. These manifests are now part of the nation archives and can be accessed digitally.

Rina: Also many of the employees and translators who worked at Ellis Island had originally been immigrants themselves and often they were native speakers of some of these languages so they might recognize these last names.

Tzeela: Okay that makes sense, but then why do people have different names than their families had in Europe?

Dalia: Some immigrants changed their names legally once they came to the United States. They might do this to sound more American and to fit in.

Rina: So why do people think their names were changed at Ellis Island

Tzeela: This myth is portrayed in the novel The Godfather by Mario Puza. It was then made into a movie called The Godfather II popularizing the myth.

Dalia: Peter Urban, “a National Park Service Ranger in the division of interpretation at Ellis Island, says that many name changes weren’t documented or recorded well so descendants of immigrants made up their own stories for why their names had been changed.

Tzeela: He suggests a reason for the myth and says that even though there wasn’t widespread disregard for the people and their names at Ellis Island, it was still often a scary and cold place for immigrants to go. This could be why families of immigrants came to blame Ellis Island for their names changes.

Rina: Dara Horn, a Jewish journalist, and author, suggests that when many Jewish immigrants came to the US they changed their names because of the antisemitism they faced. Of the people who petitioned for name changes, a high number were Jewish. Most of them didn't directly state that the reason for this request was because of antisemitism but would instead say it was hard to pronounce their names or they sounded foreign.

Dalia: Horn says that when they came to the US, they saw that they faced antisemitism here too. It must have been hard to change their names, it meant accepting that they must not publicly show a big part of their identity.

Rina: Also, telling their children would mean admitting that the US doesn’t accept them and that hiding their identity was the best way to survive. It was so much easier to create this story. If the officials just changed people's names by mistake it made America seem like a more welcoming place.


Tzeela: And now time for some Ellis Island Trivia!

Rina: Who owned Ellis island before the government?

10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1

Samuel Ellis

Dalia: When was the busiest year for immigrants coming in?

10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1

1907

Tzeela: How many immigrants came that year?

10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1

1.2 million immigrants

Rina: How many immigrants had come through Ellis Island by the time it closed?
10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1

Nearly 12 million

Tzeela: Thank you for listening! We hope you enjoyed!!

BYE!