Q for American users: do you still have your original family name?

[caviezel]

do you still have your original ancestral last name or did you or anyone else in the family changed it? like Kowalski becoming Smith or Gluck becoming McFortune?

[Profileid]

Can trace my name back hundreds of years. Yes.

[Rethel]

:rolleyes:

[Smitty]

I don't know. My most distant paternal ancestor may have been from Luxembourg, which would suggest he was a Schmidt. But the only records I've seen say he was born in Pennsylvania, so he could well have been British of some sort. I doubt I'll ever know.

[PostOak1]

Boehm became Beam


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[Blue Fox]

Yes, it's the same one except one letter was changed from an "e" to an "a" for pronunciation reasons.

[Adoptee]

I'm adopted so obviously not. I have the surname of my adoptive father, I don't even know the surname of my birth parents

[dperucca]

I changed my name when I got married but it was never changed when my family immigrated to the US.

[KMack]

The same, on both sides. On my Mom's side it would have been common to shorten and Americanize it.

[Peterski]

Kowalski could also become Kovalsky.

[JohnSmith]

do you still have your original ancestral last name or did you or anyone else in the family changed it? like Kowalski becoming Smith or Gluck becoming McFortune?

Yes.

[MysteriousWays]

It was changed, but not substantially (end chopped off).

[Karol Klačansky]

Essentially have my last name but we left haceks out so it is spelled.the same but with out slovak orthography. My moms family even kept the hungarianized spelling of their slovak last name when they came to the u.s. I think they thought it was more prestigious like that.

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[Kazimiera]

Both mother's and father's side have had diacritics removed.

[Rethel]

Both mother's and father's side have had diacritics removed.

What french diacritics did you loose?

[Kazimiera]

What french diacritics did you loose?

é

[Rethel]

é

Not so important as ę :p

[Kazimiera]

Not so important as ę :p

Absolutely! Not NEARLY as important. :D

You can blame the Germans for doing that to my surname. :D

[Rethel]

You can blame the Germans for doing that to my surname. :D

They were just envy for larger phonology :)
But I dealt with it - became polonized :p

[LouisFerdinand]

Yes.

[Jägerstaffel]

Sure do.

[MysteriousWays]

It was changed, but not dramatically in my case.

[Bobby Martnen]

Kowalski could also become Kovalsky.

Or even Covalskey, if you really wanted to rewrite it in a more English-looking way. (instead of just phonetically)

After all, Americans turned Myszkiewicz into Miscavige.

[Bobby Martnen]

It was changed, but not substantially (end chopped off).

I guess you could say that your surname got circumcised lol

[Bobby Martnen]

I do, albeit with a very minor spelling change.