the rabbis of today. In the same school were a good many Ger- man pupils, boy and girl. Some of the girls bore such fine old German given names as Katharina, Wilhelmina, Elsa, Lotta, Ermentrude and Frankziska. All these have begun to disap- pear.
The newer immigrants, indeed, do not wait for the birth of children to demonstrate their naturalization; they change their own given names immediately they land. I am told by Abra- ham Cahan that this is done almost universally on the East Side of New York. "Even the most old-fashioned Jews immigrating to this country," he says, "change Yosel to Joseph, Yankel to Jacob, Liebel to Louis, Feivel to Philip, Itzik to Isaac, Ruven to Robert, and Moise or Motel to Morris." Moreover, the spelling of Morris, as the position of its bearer improves, commonly changes to Maurice, though the pronunciation may remain Mawruss, as in the case of Mr. Perlmutter. The immigrants of other stocks follow the same habit. Every Bohemian Vaclav or Vojtech becomes a William, every Jaroslav becomes a Jerry, every Bronislav a Barney, and every Stanislav a Stanley. The Italians run to Frank and Joe; so do the Hungarians and the Balkan peoples ; the Russians quickly drop their national system of nomenclature and give their children names according to the American plan. Even the Chinese laundrymen of the big cities become John, George, Charlie and Frank; I once encountered one boasting the name of Emil.
The Puritan influence, in names as in ideas, has remained a good deal more potent in American than in England. The given name of the celebrated Praise-God Barebones marked a fashion which died out in England very quickly, but one still finds traces of it in America, e. g., in such women 's names as Faith, Hope, Prudence, Charity and Mercy, and in such men's names as Pere- grine.[1] The religious obsession of the New England colonists is also kept in mind by the persistence of Biblical names: Ezra, Hiram, Ezekial, Zachariah, Elijah, Elihu, and so on. These
- ↑ Cf. Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature, by Charles W. Bardsley; London, 1880.
