Integration and Name Changing among Jewish Refugees from Central Europe in the United States

Personal Names and Cultural Change: A Study of the Naming Patterns of Italians and Jews in the United States in 1910

“…Personal names would seem to be a relatively "pure" measure of cultural assimilation. Immigrants to the United States sometimes changed their names to bring economic advantage (Maas 1958). Unlike food or clothing, however, names are not marketed, and (unless names are changed legally) a new name is in principle equally available to the rich and the poor.…”

Jewish Name Magyarization in Hungary

“…Among the immigrants abolishing the features of their foreignness can be a typical aim, while in the case of the Jews especially their Jewish origin could be something to conceal, even if there are also examples of dissimilative surname changes, i.e. adopting typically Jewish names when immigrating from Central Europe into the United States (see Maass 1958). Unfortunately, regarding the name changes of Hungarian immigrants to other countries, not much research was made, most of which are concerning North America (Kontra 1990, Nogrady 1990, Bartha 1993for Israel, see Bányai 2009).…”

Changing One’s First Name in France: A Fountain of Youth?

“…In South Africa, for example, De Klerk studied name changes that took place as a consequence of acculturation and assimilation following migration to cities (De Klerk and Lagonikos 2004), with Black South Africans taking -English‖ first names when they had -African‖ first names. In the United States Broom and his colleagues, and then Maass and Scherr (Broom, Beem, and Harris 1955;Scherr 1986;Maass 1958), also found that migrants and descendants of migrants were overrepresented in petitions for name changes. Two other articles (Drury and McCarthy 1980;Kang 1971) focus on name changes among foreign students (Chinese students in the United States and US students in Copenhagen), and show that students who change their names -are more fully socialized into the host society than those who do not‖ (Kang 1971, 405) and -move toward the periphery of their own ethnic community‖ (Kang 1971, 411).…”