Name-change against your will
By Judy Evans
@JudyEv (371944)
Rockingham, Australia
February 16, 2026 9:07pm CST
Still on the subject of names, when I was in primary school, so around 1954 onwards, Australia was host to a great number of immigrants from a number of European countries. They had all been displaced by the war and came to Australia to make a new life.
Our town became home to a number of Polish, Italians and Greek refugees, among others. Many were of the Catholic faith and were enrolled in the local convent school. The nuns had trouble with some of the children’s names and some would go so far as to give them an Anglicised name which might or might not have resembled their own name.
As you can imagine, some children were very resentful of this and remained upset about it throughout their life. Later, some took on more English sounding names and some shortened their surnames as well. I can imagine these name-changes might make it difficult in later life trying to trace ancestors.
The photo is from Bavaria.
23 people like this
23 responses
@DaddyEvil (168114)
• United States
19h
I'm sure that made some of their parents mad, too.
4 people like this
@DaddyEvil (168114)
• United States
13h
@JudyEv Yeah, I probably wouldn't have said anything, either, especially if it wasn't my first language.
@Ineeddentures (18008)
•
19h
My grandfather and grandmother changed their names to something really English when they arrived in the UK during WW2
They wanted to blend in more and there wasn't much sympathy for Jews in London at that time.
People were openly hostile some even blaming folks like my grandparents for London getting bombed.
4 people like this
@Ineeddentures (18008)
•
10h
@JudyEv
That's a shame.
Yet prisoners of war settled here with no problems
Really strange
1 person likes this
@snowy22315 (203066)
• United States
18h
Alot of names were Anglicised when people immigrated to the US as well. My mother always thought her family name was as well, but as turns out it is exactly the same in Germany as it is here, probably because it was short.
2 people like this
@celticeagle (185640)
• Boise, Idaho
2m
Yes, I would imagine these name changes could certainly be a problem. In trying to find friends and family too.
@rebelann (115963)
• El Paso, Texas
6h
That's interesting. Here it seems many immigrants would change their surnames to hide their ethnicity, I suppose a lot of that had to do with the level of prejudices we had here. I've heard that many german immigrants in the 50s changed how they'd spell their names once they became citizens here.
@RasmaSandra (94343)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
12m
Luckily I never had to change my typical Latvian name Rasma but if there were problems I used my middle name Sandra,
@JESSY3236 (21632)
• United States
6h
My last name has many spellings and I saw on a message board one time that the different spellings came from gypsies being England and the king made them leave and that's how the many different spelling happened. I don't know if that is true.
@GardenGerty (167753)
• United States
9h
I do not know any immigration stories in my family. My dad had a very German last name, but his mom always called them "Black Dutch". Out of not wanting to be known as German, I guess.
@BarBaraPrz (51378)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
8h
Happened to my mother and her sibs... the 'e' in Dubiel was kicked out.
@just4him (322100)
• Green Bay, Wisconsin
8h
I have a relative who is big in the my dad's ancestry. From what he gleaned, there are four variations of my last name. One of the most common is removing the i and the other is taking off the x. It makes for an interesting name.
@Shiva49 (27901)
• Singapore
7h
In the Australian cricket team, we have Marnus Labuschagne originally from South Africa. It is not easy to pronounce though an easier version has been accepted by the player himself. One of his colleagues calls him "loose change"!
"Marnus Labuschagne’s surname is generally pronounced "Lab-u-shane" (rhyming with champagne), which is the accepted, Anglicized pronunciation used in Australian cricket. While of South African (Afrikaans) descent, where it is often pronounced as "Lab-uh-skag-nee" or "Lab-nee," the player himself uses the "Lab-u-shane" version".
@LooeyVille (43)
• United States
11h
They should have been called by their proper actual names and the nuns should have learned how to pronounce them.
