A Smith I know commented on my previous post with two suggested reasons for the prevalence of Smiths. One is the translation of names (Schmidt becomes Smith when coming to America), and the other is the straight assignation of new, Americanized names to immigrants.
Both of these things have directly affected my family. For years our family history records showed a woman in 1700s Bohemia named Rosalie Smith, which was obviously wrong, but it was only last week that I learned her name was Rosalie Schmidtova. A great-grandfather of mine left Greece as Frankiskos Margaritis (Φραγκίσκος Μαργαρίτης) only to discover upon his arrival at Ellis Island that he was Frank Morgan (Frank Morgan).
However, comma, I'm not convinced these account for what we observe. Translated names would only make a lot of Smiths it there were also a lot of Schmidts and all its other equivalents. This brings us back to why there are so many Smith-equivalents in all these countries with different languages. And changing everyone's name to something common points out that the new name was already seen as common. The immigration officials didn't choose "Smith" out of a hat; they chose it because it was already the most-common surname.
I could see the translation explanation being valid if not all names were translated. In this story, my Pferdehirt ancestors didn't get their name translated because the immigration official didn't know it meant "horse herder," but people named Schmidt got their names translated to Smith because that was something the worker knew. I'm not sure that accounts for "Smith" being in first place, but it could account for the size of the gap between first and second place.
via oneofthebest
0 commentaires:
Enregistrer un commentaire