American Language (94 page)

This was no unusual group of Americans, though it was deliberately assembled to convince Congress of the existence of a “melting pot that really melts.” I turn to the list of promotions in the Army, sent to the Senate on January 10, 1935, and find
Taulbee, Bamberger, Lecocq, Brandt, Thuis, Campanole, Mauborgne, Cocheu, Wuest, Boschen, Schudt, Andruss, Ahrends
and
Mueller
among the new colonels, and
Plassmeyer, Munnikhuysen, Eichelberger, Schiller-strom, Koenig, Van Deusen, Goetz, Bluemel, Mercader, Milam, Ramee, Shurtleff
and
Selleck
among the new lieutenant-colonels. I proceed to the roll of the Seventy-fourth Congress and find
Bach-man, Bilbo, Borah, Bulow, Dieterich, La Follette, Norbeck, Schall
,
Schwellenbach, Steiwer, Vandenberg, Van Nuys
and
Wagner
in the Senate, and
Arends, Bacharach, Beiter, Biermann, Binderup, Boehne, Boileau, Brunner, Bulwinkle, Cavicchia, Carlson, Celler, Christianson, Citron, DeRouen, Dickstein, Dietrich, Dirksen, Ditter, Dock-weiler, Dondero, Doutrich, Eckert, Eichner, Ekwall, Ellenbogen, Engel, Engelbright, Fernandez, Focht, Gasque, Gearhart, Gehrmann, Hildebrandt, Hoeppel, Hoffman, Imhoff, Jacobsen, Kahn, Keller, Kinzer, Kleberg, Kloeb, Knutson, Kocialkowski, Kopplemann, Kramer, Kvale, Lamneck, Lehlbach, Lemke, Lesinski, Lundeen, Maas, Marcantonio, Montet, Moritz, Palmisano, Peyser, Pfeifer, Rabaut, Ramspeck, Romjue, Sabath, Sadowski, Sauthoff, Schaefer, Schneider, Schuetz, Schulte, Seger, Sirovich, Sutphin, Utterback, Wallgren, Werner, Wolfenden, Zimmerman
and
Zioncheck
in the House. I go on to the roster of the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1935) and find
Becker, Benét, Cortissoz, Ferber, Hagedorn, Keller, Lefevre, Repplier, Sandburg, Schelling
and
Wister
among the literati,
Beaux, Dielman, DuMond, Groll, Guerin, Johansen, Jennewein, Kroll, Laessle, La Farge, Lie, Marr, Niehaus, Patigian, Roth, Speicher, Sterner, Volk, Vonnoh
and
Weinman
among the painters and sculptors, and
Damrosch, Kroeger, Loeffler, Oldberg, Schelling, Stock
and
Stoessel
among the musicians. I conclude with a glance through “Who’s Who in America” for 1934–35, confining myself to the A’s, and quickly unearth
Aasgaard, Abbé, Abrams, Abt, Acher, Ackerman, Adami, Adler, Adolphe, Adoue, Affleck, Agar, Agassiz, Aggeler, Agger, Ahl, Ahrens, Aigler, Albaugh, Aldrin, Almstedt, Alsberg, Alschuler, Altaffer, Alter, Althoff, Althouse, Altschul, Amateis, Amberg, Ameli, Amerman, Amstutz, Amweg, Anceney, Anders, Andress, Andrus, Angeli, Angelliotti, Angier, Angstman, Ansorge, Anspach, Anspacher, Anstadt, App, Appenzellar, Appleget, Arant, Archambault, Arendt, Arensberg, Arentz, Argow, Armbruster, Armentrout, Arn, Arnstein, Artman, Ascher, Asplund, Auer, Auerbach, Auf der Heide, Ault, Auman, Auringer, Authier
and
Aydelotte
— all “notable living men and women of the United States,” and all native-born. If I took in the foreign-born I might add
Abbate, Achi, Adamowski, Agersborg, Aguinaldo, Alencastre, Altglass, Altrocchi, Amateis, Angoff, Aronovici, Aronstam, Arrighi, Asakawa, Askenstedt, Avancena
and
Avinoff
.

Almost any other list of Americans, covering the whole country, would show as large a proportion of non-British surnames. Indeed,
every American telephone directory offers evidence that, despite the continued cultural and political preponderance of the original English strain, the American people, as a London weekly was saying nearly a generation ago, have ceased to be “predominantly of British stock.”
¹
The blood in their arteries is inordinately various and inextricably mixed, but yet not mixed enough to run a clear stream. A touch of foreignness still lingers about millions of them, even in the country of their birth. They show their alien origin in their domestic customs, in their habits of mind, and in their very names. Just as the Scotch and the Welsh have invaded England, elbowing out the actual English to make room for themselves, so the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the Scandinavians and the Jews of Eastern Europe, and in some areas, the French, the Slavs and the hybrid-Spaniards have elbowed out the descendants of the first colonists. It is no exaggeration, indeed, to say that wherever the old stock comes into direct and unrestrained conflict with one of these new stocks, it tends to succumb. The Irish, in the big cities of the East, attained to a political hegemony before the first native-born generation of them had grown up.
²
The Germans, following the limestone belt of the Allegheny foothills, preëmpted the best lands East of the mountains before the new Republic was born. And in our own time we have seen the Swedes and Norwegians shouldering the natives from the wheat lands of the Northwest, and the Italians driving the decadent New Englanders from their farms, and the Jews gobbling New York, and the Slavs getting a firm foothold in the mining regions and disputing with the Irish for Chicago, and the French Canadians penetrating New Hampshire and Vermont, and the Japanese and Portuguese menacing Hawaii. The birth-rate among all these foreign stocks, though it is falling, is still appreciably greater than among the older stock, and though the death-rate is also somewhat above the white average, the net increase remains considerable. Even with immigration cut off it is probable that they will continue to rise in numbers faster than the original English and so-called Scotch-Irish.

Smith
remains the predominant surname in the United States, followed by
Johnson, Brown, Williams, Jones, Miller, Davis, Anderson, Wilson
and
Moore
in order, but five of these have been heavily reinforced by non-English names. “One in every eighty-eight Americans,” says Howard F. Barker, research associate of the American Council of Learned Societies,
³
“is now a
Smith
, but only a little better than half could trace their ancestry to the British Isles.” The rest are German
Schmidts
, Scandinavian
Smeds
, Czech
Kovárs
, Hungarian
Kovácses
, Syrian
Haddads
and Polish
Kowalczyks
, and Jews who have sought escape from German or Slavic names. “Many a
Johnson
,” continues Mr. Barker, “who traces his ancestry will find himself an Irish
McShane
, a Swedish
Johansson
, or a Dutch or Danish
Jansen
. By reason of these conversions
Johnson
has become our second most popular surname and the only name beside
Smith
to be borne by over a million Americans.” He goes on:

In the same way
Anderson
has assimilated many non-British names of similar etymology and sound,
e.g., Andresen, Andriessen, Andersohn, Andersson
, and so on. In St. Paul and Minneapolis it now ranks second among surnames, being preceded only by
Johnson
, with
Nelson
and
Peterson
following.
Johnson
also leads in Chicago, with
Smith, Anderson, Miller
and
Brown
following. In New York as a whole the leaders run:
Smith, Cohen, Miller, Brown, Schwartz
. Many of the
Browns
, of course, were originally
Brauns, Braunsteins
, and the like. In Boston
Smith
is followed by
Sullivan, Brown, Johnson
and
Murphy
. In New Orleans it is followed, rather inexplicably, by
Levy
, with
Miller
and
Williams
following. In Cincinnati
Meyer
is in third place. In Philadelphia
Miller
is in second place, and in
San Francisco it is in fourth.
⁴
There have been notable changes during the past quarter century. In 1913
Cohen
was in eighth place in New York City; it has now moved to second.
⁵
In Boston
Murphy
was in third place in 1913; it has now been displaced by
Brown
and
Johnson
, which then followed it.
⁶

In 1928 Mr. Barker estimated that there were then 66,250,000 persons in the country using English and Welsh names, and that of the number 41,550,000 had got them by ancient inheritance, 7,500,000 were Negroes whose forebears had assumed them, and 17,200,000 were whites who had adopted them themselves, or got them from fathers or grandfathers who had adopted them. At the same time he estimated that, of the 18,000,000 persons bearing Irish names, 15,750,000 had got them by inheritance, 1,300,000 were Negroes, and 950,000 were whites who had them by adoption, and that, of the 8,800,000 bearing Scottish names, 6,600,000 had them by inheritance, 1,200,000 were Negroes, and 1,000,000 had them by adoption.
⁷
Changes in surnames go on in all countries, and at all times. They are effected very largely by transliteration or translation. Thus the name of
Taaffe
, familiar in Austrian history, had an Irish prototype, probably
Taft
. General
Demikof
, one of the Russian commanders at the battle of Zorndorf, in 1758, was a Swede born
Themicoud
, and no doubt the founder of the house in Sweden was a Frenchman. Edvard
Grieg
, the Norwegian composer, had a Scotch forefather named
Craig
. Franz Maria von
Thugut
, the Austrian diplomatist, was a member of an Italian Tyrolese family named
Tunicotto
. This became
Thunichgut
(
do no good
) in Austria, and was changed to
Thugut
(
do good
) to bring it into greater accord with its possessor’s deserts. In
Bonaparte
the Italian
buon
(
o
) became the French
bon
. The family is said to have come from
Southern Greece to Corsica, and to have been named
Kalomeris
originally. Of this,
Buonaparte
was simply an Italian translation. Many familiar English surnames are Anglicized forms of Norman-French names, for example,
Sidney
from
St. Denis, Divver
from
De Vere, Bridgewater
from
Burgh de Walter, Garnett
from
Guarinot
, and
Seymour
from
Saint-Maure
. A large number of so-called Irish names are similarly the products of rough-and-ready transliterations of Gaelic patronymics, for example,
Findlay
from
Fionnlagh, Dermott
from
Diarmuid
, and
McLane
from
Mac Illeathiain
. In the United States, with a language of peculiar vowel-sounds and even consonant-sounds struggling against a foreign invasion unmatched for strength and variety, such changes have been far more numerous than across the ocean, and the legal rule of
idem sonans
is of much wider utility than anywhere else in the world. If it were not for that rule there would be endless difficulties for the
Wises
whose grandfathers were
Weisses
, and the
Leonards
born
Leonhards, Leonhardts
or
Lehnerts
, and the
Manneys
who descend and inherit from
Le Maines
.

“What changes names most,” says Mr. Barker, “is the abrasion of common speech.” They tend almost inevitably to be assimilated with more familiar names of like, or nearly like sound, and folk etymology often helps along the process. Thus the
Thurgods
, in the course of years, have become
Thoroughgoods
, and the German
Todenackers
have become the Pennsylvania
Toothachers
, and the Jewish
Jonases
have joined the tribe of
Jones
, and the Dutch
Wittenachts
have become the Kentucky
Whitenecks
. In Pennsylvania, says Mr. Barker, “
Bachmann
was first ‘improved’ as
Baughman
, promptly misunderstood as
Boughman
(pronounced to rhyme with
ploughman
), and then more easily spelled
Bowman
, which made possible one more shift in pronunciation.” The original
Herkimer
in New York was a
Herchheimer
; the original
Waldo
in New England was a German named
Waldow
. Edgar Allan
Poe
, it has been alleged, was a member of a family settled in Western Maryland, the founder being one
Poh
or
Pfau
, a native of the Palatinate. Major George
Armistead
, who defended Fort McHenry in 1814, when Francis Scott Key wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner,” was the descendant of an
Armstädt
who came to Virginia from Hesse-Darmstadt. John
Morton
, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, had a Finnish grandfather named
Marttinen
. Harriet
Lane
Johnson was the descendant of Pennsylvania Germans named
Lehn
. General George A.
Custer
, the Indian fighter, was the great-grandson of one
Küster
, a Hessian soldier paroled after Burgoyne’s surrender. William
Wirt
, anti-Masonic candidate for the Presidency in 1832, was the son of a German named
Wörth
. General J. J.
Pershing
is the descendant of a German named Friedrich
Pfoersching
, who immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1749; the name was at first debased to
Pershin
, but in 1838 the final
g
was restored.
⁸
General W. S.
Rosecrans
was really
Rosenkrantz
. General James
Longstreet
was the descendant of one Dirck Stoffels
Langestraet
who came to New Amsterdam in 1657. Herbert C.
Hoover
was the great-great-great-grandson of Andreas
Huber,
a German who settled in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, in 1740. “In colonial times,” says Mr. Barker, “some of the
Hubers
remained as such, but most changed to
Hoover
, some to
Hover
, others to
Hoober, Hoeber
and even
Hoofer
.” Joshua
Levering
, Prohibition candidate for the Presidency in 1896, was descended from Pennsylvania German
Lieberings
. Samuel W.
Penny packer
, Governor of Pennsylvania (1903–07), was descended from a Dutch
Pannebacker
who reached Pennsylvania before 1700. Edmund Burke
Fairfield
, once chancellor of the University of Nebraska, had a French forefather named
Beauchamp
. Even the surname of Abraham
Lincoln
, according to some authorities, was an anglicized form of the German
Linkhorn
.
⁹