American Language Supplement 2 (87 page)

Johnson says that very few Swedish-Americans have the courage and patience to insist upon the retention of Swedish diacritical marks in their names. The umlaut vowels are
å
, pronounced like the English
o
in
more; ä
, which has the sound of
a
in
sad
, and
ä
, which is identical to the German
ö
in
böse
. Transliteration produces
Monson
from
Månson
,
¹
Backman
from
Båckman
and
Turnwall
from
Törnwall
– all of them approximations. Says Johnson:

The Norwegian immigrants who began to swarm into the Middle West toward the middle of the Nineteenth Century brought with them a system of nomenclature that was even more vague and unstable than that of the Swedes. They came chiefly from the remoter farming areas of their country, and most of them had no surnames at all, but only patronymics.
Ole
the son of
Lars
was
Ole Larssen
, but
Johannes
the son of
Ole
was not
Ole Larssen;
he was
Johannes Olessen
or
Olesen
. If any further identification was needed it was supplied by appending the name of the family farm, for all farms in Norway had names. But this farm-name was hardly a surname in our sense, for if a given
Lars
or
Ole
moved from the paternal farm to another, whether as its new owner or tenant, or as the husband of its heiress, or simply as a hired hand, he sometimes took the name of the latter. Usually, however, he did not use this farm-name save for official purposes; in everyday life he was simply
Ole Olesen
. This simple system sufficed in the isolated communities of rural Norway,
but when immigrants from all parts of the country were thrown together in America it caused hopeless confusion.

Many of these immigrants then recalled the names of their home-farms and began to use them as surnames, but others simply froze their patronymics as surnames for their children, so that the son of
Lars Olesen
was not
Nils Larsen
, as at home, but
Nils Olesen
. But this did not disperse the confusion, for the number of Norwegian given-names was limited, and it was not uncommon for
Olesens
or
Larsens
of a dozen different parts of Norway to be gathered in one American village. To this day the Norwegian-Americans have a great many more names in
-sen
and
-son
than any other group, but the number is much less than it used to be. The census of 1850 showed that it then ran to 93% of all the Norwegian names in Wisconsin, but by 1860 the percentage had dropped to 89 and by 1870 to 77. What it is today, I don’t know, but it is probably less than 33. Gradually the suffix
-sen
was changed to
-son
to bring it into accord with American speechways, and for the same reason the redundant
s
was deleted. Thus
Johannessen
became
Johnson, Anderssen
became
Anderson, Peterssen
became
Peterson
, and so on. Not infrequently yet other changes were made,
e.g
., from
Karlssen
to
Carlson
, from
Swenssen
to
Swanson
, and from
Knutsen
to
Newton
.
¹

The Norwegian-Americans, when they began to adopt settled surnames, did not confine themselves to those suggested by logical associations. If their traditional farm-names were those of remote and meagre farms, connoting poverty to their fellow Norsemen, they collared better ones, connoting opulence. Certain names became fashionable, and others went below the salt. A name in
-hof
stood at the head of the list, and was followed, in the order of prestige,
by names in
-boer, -vin, -heimr, -saetr, -land, -stadir
and
-rud
. Of names other than those of farms,
-skiold
(shield) and
-hjelm
(helmet) hinted at nobility, and a Latin suffix at learning. “Very few trade names were used,” says Dr. Kimmerle,
¹
“because every Norwegian looked upon himself as being principally a farmer.”
²
Often two or more sons of the same father chose different names, and the result was a disorder that still afflicts Norwegian-American genealogists. Some of the American immigrants who chose farm names used those brought from Norway; others used those of their American farms, or of farms owned by their wives, or their mothers, or their wives’ first husbands, or of some rich
kulak
whom they worked for and admired. Others elevated nicknames to the estate of surnames,
e.g., Aslak
, little, or
Vesle
, the younger. Yet others shortened their patronymics, so that
Clemetsen
became
Clemet
. A few even took trade names.

Unhappily, many of these names were written in official Norwegian, which was basically Danish, but pronounced in the fashion of one or another of the Norwegian dialects, so that a given man had a name in two forms, and not infrequently Americans could not master either. In consequence there was the usual wholesale change to American equivalents, real or fancied, so that
Praestegaard
became
Prescott; Asbjørnsen, Aspenwall; Laurentsen, Lawrence; Eigildsen, Eggleson; Kjaerret, Cherrie
or
Cherry
, and
Fjeld, Field
. Long names were ruthlessly shortened,
e.g., Halsteinsgaard-bakken
to
Bakken
and
Magnusholmen
to
Magnus
. Some of the Norwegian vowel-sounds were changed considerably.
³
The
a
in
Hagen, Hanson, Fladen
and the like, corresponding to the English
a
in
art
, was commonly shortened to the
a
in
band
or
cat
, but remained unchanged where it was supported by
h
, as in
Dahl
. The
u
in
Gunderson
and
Munson
became the short American
u
of
grunt
. The
ø
suffered various mutations, mainly into the
u
of
curt
or the
o
of
cod
. The
d
, often silent in Norwegian names (though not in the elegant form of the language), was usually sounded, as in
Gunderson
and the names in -
stad
and -
rud
. The Norwegian
th
, pronounced
t
, became the American
th
, as in
Thorstad
– a change hitherto noted in such German Jewish names as
Morgenthau
. Very often the pronunciation of a name was changed without any change in its spelling,
e.g., Brager
(
Brahkah
in Norwegian), which became
Bragger
. But more often the spelling was changed also, so that
Bjørnson
became
Benson, Gaarden
became
Gordon, Terjesen
became
Toycen
and then
Tyson
,
¹
and
Viig
became
Week
. This process began at home in Norway, especially in the towns. There such British names as
Scott, Hall
and
Frost
became established long ago,
²
along with a number of German spellings,
e.g., Baer, Schroeder
and
Wahl
. In Bergen Scotch names are common,
e.g., Campbell, Christie
and
Ross
. The composer Edvard Hagerup
Grieg
(1843–1907) was the grandson of a Scotsman named Alexander
Greig
, born in Aberdeen in 1739.
³

Of the names of Latin immigrants, those of the Spanish have fared the best in this country. Most Americans are familiar with such Spanish surnames as
Gomez, Sanchez, Gonzalez, Alvarez, Lopez, Rodriguez
and
Garcia
and pronounce them at least as accurately as the plain people of Latin-America, who commonly follow Andalusian speechways and so neglect the
th
-sound of the Castilian terminal
z
. Very few of the Cubans and Mexicans who have come to the United States have changed their names – probably because they usually settle in regions where Spanish is the second language.

The slaughter of French surnames that went on in colonial days is described briefly in AL4.
⁶
It continues among the descendants of the early settlers along the Mississippi, and the later French-Canadian immigrants to New England and the Lakes region. J.-M. Carrière
The Portuguese are less fortunate, perhaps because they are always surrounded by a population which can’t fathom their language, which is considerably more difficult to Americans than Spanish. In Southeastern Massachusetts and also in Hawaii many common Portuguese surnames undergo radical changes in spelling and pronunciation,
e.g., Roach
for
Rocha, Marks
for
Marques, Perry
for
Perreira
or
Pereida, Tachera
for
Teixeira, Martin
for
Martines, Morey
or
Morris
for
Moreira, Cole
for
Coelho, Sylvia
for
Silva, Jordan
for
Jordaõ
and
Rogers
for
Rodrigues
.
¹
Sometimes a name is translated, as when
Silva
becomes
Wood
or
Forest
, and
Reis, King
.
²
Many Spanish names in -
ez
have corresponding Portuguese forms in -
es:
the bearer of one of the latter tells me that most Americans insist on regarding it as Spanish, and pronouncing it as they think Spanish should be pronounced.
³
Neither the Spaniards nor the Portuguese in the United States maintain the system of surnames prevailing in their homelands, especially among the upper classes. In Spain a son’s full name consists of his given-name, the surname of his father and the surname of his mother, the last two connected by
y
(and), thus:
Juan Espinosa y Pelayo
, which may be abbreviated on occasion to
Juan Espinosa y P
., or
Juan Espinosa P
., or even plain
Juan Espinosa
. A daughter’s name follows the same plan, but when she marries she drops her mother’s surname and substitutes that of her husband, preceded by
de
.
⁴
The Portuguese combine the paternal and maternal surnames in the same way, but with
de
in place of
y, e.g., Manuel Silva de Dias
. But in America they commonly use their mothers’ surnames as middle names, as many Americans do,
e.g.
,
Manuel Dias Silva
.
⁵
reported in 1939
¹
that the following spellings had come in during the “last generation or two” in a settlement of French origin in the foothills of the Missouri Ozarks:
Rulo
for
Rouleau, Courteway
for
Courtois, Pashia
for
Pagé, Partney
for
Parthenais, Degonia
for
Degagné
, and
Osia
and
O’Shea
for
Augier
. The early French system of surnames was strange enough to make for confusion,
²
and that confusion was increased as the years passed, both along the Mississippi and along the northern border, by the frequent modification of spellings and pronunciations. McDermott, just cited, gives nineteen forms, for example, of the name
Kiercereau
, including
Kiergerau, Kergzo, Quiercero
and
Tiercero
, some suggesting German or Spanish influences. These changes in spelling, in the course of time, as Carrière says, tended “to conform to primitive phonetic patterns based upon English orthography,” so that
Archambault
eventually became
Shambo
³
or
Shampoo;
⁴
La Riviere, Larraby; L’Archeveque, Larch; Tetreault, Tatro; Guertau, Tetaw;
⁵
Bon Coeur, Bunker;
⁶
Chequelin, Jucklin; Thiebaud, Kabo;
⁷
Gauthier, Goochey; Gagne, Gonyer; Lavoie, Lovewear; Choquette, Shackway; Le Houx, Lou;
⁸
Renaud, Reno;
⁹
Guizot
,
Gossett
or
Cossett
or
Cozart
or
Cozatt;
¹
Beaumont, Bement
or
Bament;
²
Aubert, Obear; Bourgeois, Bushway; Blancpied, Blumpy; La Joie, Lashaway; Benoit, Benway;
³
Lareau, Laro; Poitevin, Potwin; Rossignol, Russel; Gervaise, Jarvis
.
⁴