Oakes, Hoch to Hoke, Fischbach to Fishback, Albrecht to Albert or Albright, and Steinweg to Steinway, and the Grundwort, bach, was almost universally changed to baugh, as in Brumbaugh. The ü met the same fate: Grün was changed to Green, Führ to Fear or Fuhr, Warner to Warner, During to Deering, and Schndbele to Snavely, Snabely or Snively. In many other cases there were changes in spelling to preserve vowel sounds differ- ently represented in German and English. Thus, Blum was changed to Bloom,[1] Reuss to Royce, Koester to Kester, Kuehle to Keeley, Schroeder to Schrader, Stehli to Staley, Weymann to Way man, Friedmann to Freedman, Bauman to Bowman, and Langr (as the best compromise possible) to Long. The change of Oehm to Ames belongs to the same category ; the addition of the final s represents a typical effort to substitute the nearest related Anglo-Saxon name. Other examples of that effort are to be found in Michaels for Michaelis, Bowers for Bauer, John- son for Johannsen, Ford for Furth, Hines for Heintz, Kemp for Kempf, Foreman for Fuhrmann, Kuhns or Coons for Kuntz, Hoover for Huber, Levering for Liebering, Jones for Jonas, Swope for Schwab, Hite or Hyde for Heid, Andrews for Andre, Young for Jung, and Pence for Pentz.[2]
The American antipathy to accented letters, mentioned in the chapter on spelling, is particularly noticeable among surnames. An immigrant named Fürst inevitably becomes plain Furst in the United States, and if not the man, then surely his son. Löwe, in the same way, is transformed into Lowe (pro. low),[3]
- ↑ Henry Harrison, in his Dictionary of the Surnames of the United Kingdom; London, 1912, shows that such names as Bloom, Cline, etc., always represent transliterations of German names. They are unknown to genuinely British nomenclature.
- ↑ A great many more such transliterations and modifications are listed by Faust, op. cit., particularly in his first volume. Others are in Pennsylvania Dutch, by S. S. Haldemann; London, 1872, p. 60 et seq., and in The Origin of Pennsylvania Surnames, by L. Oscar Kuhns, Lippincott's Magazine, March, 1897, p. 395.
- ↑ I lately encountered the following sign in front of an automobile
repair shop:
For puncture or blow
Bring it to Lowe.
