Was Our Name Changed at Ellis Island? Where Name Changes Really Happened
Many families believe an immigration inspector changed their surname. The records tell a different story. How names really changed, and how to find the original.
It's one of the most widely told family stories in America: "Our name was changed at Ellis Island." The inspector couldn't spell it, so he wrote down something simpler, and the family has used that name ever since. It's a good story. But historians and genealogists agree that it almost never happened that way.
Why inspectors didn't change names
- Inspectors didn't write the names. Passenger lists (manifests) were prepared at the port of departure, in Europe, often by a ticket agent or shipping clerk who spoke the passengers' language, before the ship sailed. At Ellis Island, inspectors checked each arriving passenger against the manifest that came with the ship.
- Inspectors often spoke the immigrants' languages, and interpreters were available, because the inspectors needed to question people about their health, money and destination.
- There was no new document with a new name. Immigrants didn't receive papers at Ellis Island giving them a new surname.
Ellis Island operated as the main immigration station for New York from 1892 to 1924, and even before it opened, the same system applied: names came from the lists made overseas.
So how did names change?
Names did change, often dramatically. But usually the immigrants changed them themselves, gradually, after arriving:
- To fit in. A name that was hard for English speakers to say or spell was often simplified or translated: Schmidt to Smith, Zimmermann to Carpenter, Kowalski to Kowal.
- For work. An employer, foreman or coworker might call someone by an easier name, and it stuck.
- For school. Children often took anglicized first names at school: Giuseppe became Joseph, Wojciech became Albert.
- Because of prejudice, especially during the World Wars, when many German families changed their names, and for Jewish families facing discrimination.
- Through gradual drift. Spelling shifted from record to record until the family settled on one version.
Some people made the change official during naturalization, when the court could record a name change. See Naturalization Records.
Why the story persists
The Ellis Island story is easy to tell and easy to believe. It explains a name change without anyone having to admit to choosing to change it. And Ellis Island is such a powerful symbol that stories about earlier or later arrivals, through other ports, sometimes get attached to it too.
How to find the original name
- Work backward from American records. Find the earliest records of your immigrant in the U.S., such as the first census, naturalization papers, church records and marriage records. The earliest versions are often closest to the original.
- Check naturalization papers. After 1906, declarations and petitions usually give the name at arrival, the ship and the date, and sometimes a court-approved name change.
- Find the passenger list. With the arrival date and ship, find the manifest. The name will be as it was recorded overseas, often in the original spelling. See Passenger Lists.
- Search for the original in home-country records. Once you know the original name and the town, you can follow the family back. See German, Irish, Italian and our other heritage guides.
Search tips
- Search passenger lists with the original spelling, the anglicized spelling, and a sounds-like option. See Search Tricks That Work.
- Search by first name, age and town of origin with no surname.
- Look for family members who traveled together, or a relative they were joining, whose names may have changed less.