Dennis Fleishman of Toms River, N.J., has a question that, he writes, “has been lingering in my mind for quite some time. What determines the pronunciation in English of the vowel in names ending in ‘-stein’? Sometimes it’s pronounced like the vowel in ‘pie’ and sometimes like the vowel in ‘feet.’ Is there a rule of thumb?”
None that I can think of. Eastern European Jewish names such as Goldstein, Blaustein, Farbstein, Finkelstein and so on have as their last syllable the Yiddish word for stone, shtayn, which was pronounced in most parts of the Yiddish-speaking world to rhyme with “wine.” (In Lithuania, however, it rhymed with “wane,” and in Galicia with “wan.”) This is also the pronunciation of the German word for “stone,” Stein, and since American immigration officials at Ellis Island had already dealt with German immigrants having such names like Rosenstein and Morgenstein long before Eastern European Jews began arriving on American shores, they recorded the -shtayn of Eastern European Jewish names as “-stein.” (The Eastern European Jews themselves only knew how to write their names in the Hebrew characters used in Yiddish.)
And yet, “ei” is a fairly rare combination in English and is not always pronounced like the vowel in “wine.” Sometimes it’s pronounced like the “ea” in “wean,” as in “weird,” “seize” and the standard American pronunciation of “neither.” And so when Americans encountered such Eastern European names as Goldstein, Blaustein, Farbstein and Finkelstein, some pronounced the last syllable to rhyme with “wine” and some to rhyme with “wean,” and the possessors of these names reacted accordingly and pronounced them in these two different ways, too. Yet while this explains the inconsistency that Mr. Fleishman has been wondering about, it still doesn’t help him to guess whether the next Finkelstein he meets prefers to be called “Finkelstine” or “Finkelstean.” My own impression is that the first of these two pronunciations is more common, so it probably should be the default choice.
And on the same subject of Jewish immigrant names, another New Jerseyan, Manus Gass from River Edge, sends this e-mail:
“My Hungarian mother-in-law has always insisted that her name was Weitz (according to her a ‘w’ was pronounced like a ‘v’ in Hungary) and that this became Weiss when she came to America. Many members of the family subsequently changed Weiss to White by translating it into English. But since my mother-in-law’s family were millers and vaytz means ‘oats’ in Yiddish, isn’t it more likely that Weitz was the correct form?”
Although veytz (with the vowel like that of “ate”) means “wheat” and not “oats” (the word for which is hober) in Yiddish, I see no reason to doubt Mr. Gass’s mother-in-law. Once again, one has to put oneself in the shoes of a harried immigration official at Ellis Island who was obliged every day to hear dozens of strange-sounding Jewish names and make a hurried decision about how best to write them in English. Had the members of Mr. Gass’s mother-in-law’s family given such an official the German spelling of Weiz, or the Hungarian spelling of Vèc, this would have ended up on the their immigration form, but since they could only spell their name in Yiddish, they simply said “Veytz” out loud. The official, however, would have heard this as the more common “Veiss,” which — again under the influence of German (in which, as in Yiddish, weiss means white) — already had the conventional Ellis Island orthography of Weiss, and so the official would have written it down in that fashion.
This reminds of a story that I suspect I may have told many years ago in this column, one that, even if I did, bears repeating.
One day, a Jew was introduced to another Jew name Sean Fergusson who spoke with a Yiddish accent. “Sean Fergusson?” the first Jew asked. “Vi kumt a yid tsu Sean Fergusson?”
“It’s like this,” the second Jew said. “My name was Moshke Rabinowitz. The first time I arrived at Ellis Island, I failed the eye test, so the doctors sent me back to Europe. There my eyes were treated and cured, and I decided to try again. But what would happen, I thought, if I turned up a second time as the same Moshke Rabinowitz? They’d already know me and send me back again. And so I decided to call myself Yankl Katzenstein. Still, what if someone recognized me? And so there I was, standing in line at Ellis Island and getting more and more nervous all the time, and when it’s finally my turn I’m so flustered that I can’t remember my new name. The immigration official asks me what it is, and I can’t think of it; it’s simply escaped me. ‘Oy, kh’hob shoyn fargesn!’ I say. ‘Sean Fergusson?’ the official repeats, and writes it down on the form.”
In Yiddish, of course, kh’hob shoyn fargesn means “I’ve forgotten.” Is it a true story? I leave that for you to ponder. As one says in Italian, “Si non è vero, è ben trovato,” which roughly translates as, “If it didn’t happen, it should have.”
Questions for Philologos can be sent to philologos@forward.com.
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Abiebaby said: More about name changes: Schneider was actually a schneider, so upon arrival in NY he opened a clothing store. It wasn't doing well, so on Yom Kippur, Schneider vowed that he would make God his partner and give half of his gross profits to charity. To memorialize his oath, Schneider renamed the stor "Gott & Schneider." The business then prospered and Schneider moved uptown. His children told him that "Uptown" the name "Gott & Schneider" just wouldn't cut it--and that's how Lord & Taylor began. Nice story but upon further research: ...Samuel Lord and George Washington Taylor founded the company in 1826; it was the first major store on Fifth Avenue. Among other firsts, it was the first store to present innovative Christmas windows filled with holiday displays rather than merchandise, and the first to open a branch store (1941 in Manhasset). Lord & Taylor is also known for playing the national anthem before the start of each business day...
The Sean Ferguson story reminds me of the immigrant Jew Goldberg, opening a saloon in an Irish neighborhood in NYC. He appeared in court seeking a name change from Goldberg to O'Reilly for "business reasons," which was granted. A few months later he was before the same judge to change his name to Kelly. The curious judge asked why the second name change. The petitioner said, "Because all my customers ask what my name was before it was O'Reilly."
Goldberg and Steinberg opened a business in on the upper East Side. Unfortunately, Goldberg & Steinberg did not do well--so Goldberg changed his name to Johnson, and the business name to Johnson & Goldberg. The business did better, so Steinberg decided to akt an "American" name and the business became "Johnson & Johnson" and took off. One day the receptionist took a phone call. "May I speak with Mr. Johnson, please?" "Which Johnson do you want, Goldberg or Steinberg?"
More about name changes: Schneider was actually a schneider, so upon arrival in NY he opened a clothing store. It wasn't doing well, so on Yom Kippur, Schneider vowed that he would make God his partner and give half of his gross profits to charity. To memorialize his oath, Schneider renamed the stor "Gott & Schneider." The business then prospered and Schneider moved uptown. His children told him that "Uptown" the name "Gott & Schneider" just wouldn't cut it--and that's how Lord & Taylor began.
No names were changed at Ellis Island; it's a myth. Ships had manifests of all passengers, names written out. See http://momentmag.com/Exclusive/2008/2008-03/200803-Names.html
Have you seen some of those manifests? Stein, Jacob... Stein, wife... Stein, boy... Stein, girl... Stein, infant.... Yes, the manifests were made in Europe “where officials were familiar with the spelling of Jewish names.” However, immigrants frequently did not leave from a port in their country of origin, e.g., sailing out of Hamburg when they had originally left a town far beyond Germany’s eastern border. This was often the case for immigrants from the more landlocked regions of the Eastern Europe. Officials at the port of departure were not necessarily familiar with the pronunciation or spelling of names from regions hundreds of miles away. Being an accomplished linguist was not a prerequisite for immigration officials of shipping employees. The ocean journey from Europe to America was not always direct, and lengthy stopovers in England were common, where immigrants waited to be joined by family or for additional funds to be sent. Such journeys were rarely booked as “packages,” and another manifest would be generated, providing additional opportunity for error to enter the record.
Sorry to be so vague about this, but I remember being told that the use of [stin] for [ʃtain] was mediated through [stɛin] or [stein] pronunciations that were used in Russia, and that simple "Stein" was unaffected because it was distinctively German and German Jewish and never went through this [stein] form. Is there any more solid evidence of this? (I note that the Berenstain Bears, the children's book series, are pronounced [bɛrɛnstein], with a typically Russian epenthetic vowel.)
Just thought I'd tell you that (a) I always enjoy your column, and (b) I have friends names Goldstein. The husband pronounces is Golstayn, the wife Goldsteen!
As always, the Philogos column is my favorite part of The Forward. I do have to echo what Nachum Lamm said, however. I have come across three sources saying that the idea of names being changed at Ellis Island is a myth. I only have one of those sources handy. Justin Kaplan and Anne Bernays in their book THE LANGUAGE OF NAMES, quote the historian Robert Rennick: "The belief that most 'foreign' names were mutilated by ignorant or indifferent officials at the ports of debarkation in this country, at least after th Federal government assumed jurisdiction over immigration in 1882, seems to have little basis in fact. Under the provisions of the Act of 1891, whatever name was given on the immigrant manifest, made out for him at the port of embarkation in Europe or on bourd the vessel taking him to America, was the name recorded at the place of entry. It was in the preparation of manifest and passenger lists that most of the name errors probably ocurred until 1924, when immigrant were require to preent visas for admission."
I must second others, notably Nachum Lamm who pointed it out first hre, that the column perpetuates the myth that names were changed at Ellis Island. Nobody has evere documented a single name that was changed at Ellis Island; they are all stories without any corroboration. The "Ellis Island" manifests are immigration manifests, and the same forms were used at other ports. The forms were filled out on ships while in transit; there was no line of 2000 people waiting while the clerks asked people for their names. If a person travelled from an intermediary port in country not their own, the nationality of the person who wrote the information did not matter little, since information was copied from passports or other documents; only the ability to read the handwriting from which they copied or typed mattered. At Ellis Island names on the already written manifest were checked as immigrants made it through the process, but they were not being recorded for the first time. Names were changed in the days and weeks after arrival in the U.S., when immigrants discovered that their relatives spelled differently, or that the name was pronounced differently in America because letters were pronounced in new ways. Technically, there was a name change process, just as there is now, but it was rarely used because of the expense and time, and also because it was unnecessary to accomplish the name change.
hi :)
hallo, is there a relation between nissan and Niessen, my surname? Is my surname jewish? Thanks for the answer (I am Dutch) greeings, H.Niessen
A Canadian Jew who lives in Northern Ontario and whose family name is Scott was asked about his rather unusual surname. His answer was that when his great-grandfather arrived from the old country, the customs officer asked him what his name was. "Tkach," said the man. "Oh, that's much too difficult for us here in Canada. From now on your name is Scott." (recounted in a video some ten years ago or so in A Coat of Many Colours, a travelling exhibition marking 200 years of Jewish Life in Canada.)
Does anyone have any information on the name Schanfeld? I know it translates into pretty or beautiful field in German. However I took German in hs and it is spelled with an o instead of an a.
meanings of full name in all langauges.