When the name’s not what you wanted
The Legal Genealogist is headed to Indiana this weekend, for a two-day bash at the Indiana Historical Society.
Tomorrow evening, we’ll explore Blackguards and Black Sheep: The Lighter Side of the Law, and then on Saturday, it’s a day with the law and its records: “Deemed a Runaway” – Black Laws of the North; Inventing America – Records of the U.S. Patent Office; “No Person Shall … Gallop Horses in the Streets” – Using Court Records to Tell the Story of Our Ancestors’ Lives; and Through the Golden Door – Immigration Following the Civil War.
So in honor of the Hoosier State, let’s take another look at a question raised by reader Susan Clark some five years ago — a question answered in most particulars then and now by the Indiana Supreme Court.1
Susan wondered about the need for some sort of official legal process to change an immigrant’s name. She noted:
My grandfather arrived in this country in 1920 under the name Stefan Papp. I was always told he (as well as all his relatives in the United States) changed the spelling to Popp to more closely reflect the proper (Hungarian/Ruthenian) pronunciation. My recent review of Binghamton NY city directories indicates he used Papp until he became a citizen on 2 Jan 1934. … It appears that each of the Popp men changed the spelling at citizenship (though the locations differed – NY, western PA, and Los Angeles). Was any legal process even needed?
Needed, no. Done regularly, and especially then, you betcha.
First, let’s look at the law on names generally. Remember that the whole notion of full formal legal names with a given name, middle name and surname is a relatively modern concept, and it’s certainly been an evolving concept. As explained by the Indiana Supreme Court in 2010:
Before the Norman conquest, the inhabitants of the British Isles typically did not use surnames, let alone permanent names inherited from their fathers. As Anglo-American societies grew more complex, producing more contact with government officials, larger populations, and new types of legal documents, the level of sophistication in the systems with which people identified ourselves also increased. Circumstances, necessity, and time produced a set of customary practices.2
When surnames started being used in the 14th century, they were chosen almost at random based on occupation, physical attributes or the like (John Baker, Will Longnose), were generally applied only to one person, and didn’t get passed down to descendants. It wasn’t until the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in the 16th century that names were pretty much fixed and passed down from father to son.3
But, at common law, if you didn’t like the name you got stuck with at birth, you simply changed it by announcing to everybody else what you wanted to be called. No court proceeding was necessary.4 Until the mid-19th century in the United States, there weren’t even any laws that let the courts change somebody’s name officially. Until 1851, in Indiana, if you wanted an official record of a name change, you needed an act of the Legislature.5
Once name-change laws started to be passed, they were universally regarded as adding another method to change your name, and not doing away with the common law right to just up and announce that, from this day forward, you wanted to be Clem Kadiddlehopper instead of John Smith.6 As long as your purpose in changing your name is honest, and you aren’t trying to defraud creditors by ducking out on your bills, even today in most states the common law allows you to simply start using any other name you want. Think “the artist formerly known as…” stuff.
But, as the Indiana Supreme Court noted, the fact that you can call yourself anything you wanted doesn’t mean a modern government agency has to go along with it: “Hoosiers still may refer to themselves by any name they like. They may not, however, demand that government agencies begin using their new names without a court order. This dual structure recognizes the reality that names serve multiple purposes, both private and public.”7
Today, if you want government to change your name for things like Social Security or getting a driver’s license or any other official purpose, you will need a court order.8 And the courts will be a bit pickier than you might be. You probably can’t get a court order changing your name to a racial epithet,9 or some obscene word or phrase.10 But Santa Claus is okay, at least in Utah.11
So if immigrants like Stefan Papp could use any name they wanted — and that certainly included any spelling they wanted — why would so many of Susan’s Popp relatives have changed their names on naturalization?
Simple. Because the immigration law made it so darned easy to do so. Starting with the immigration law of 190612 and lasting all the way up to today, immigrants seeking naturalization have been asked whether they wanted a name change as part of the naturalization process. If the answer was yes, it’d be done by the court as part of the naturalization.13
When Stefan Papp became a citizen, it was just so easy to get your name changed at the same time. The form presented to the judge was much like the form shown above, from 1929. Every immigrant was asked if a name change was sought; if it was, it was jotted down in the space shown by the red arrow, and the minute the judge signed the naturalization order, the name change took effect as well. And, best of all, no extra fee was required.
Of course, good genealogical practice requires us always to consider the background context of an event including the laws, customs and history of the period.14 Think about the context here: these were and are people for whom nothing was more important than regularizing their status as Americans in full compliance with all the laws. Particularly for those from countries where having your papers in order was important, having these papers in order would be paramount.
Was it needed? No. But why would an immigrant not to do it? A new life as an American, a shiny new citizenship certificate, and the name you wanted to use in your new land, all in one fell swoop.
Such a deal…
SOURCES
- See Judy G. Russell, “What’s in a name?,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 12 Mar 2012 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 17 May 2017). ↩
- Leone v. Comm’r, Ind. Bur. of Motor Vehs., 933 N.E.2d 1244, 1251 (Ind. 2010) (citations omitted). ↩
- G.S. Arnold, “Personal Names”, 15 Yale L.J. 227, 227-228 (1905). ↩
- See generally In re Ross, 8 Cal. 2d 608, 609 (1937) (“The common law recognizes the right to change one’s personal name without the necessity of legal proceedings”); Smith v. United States Casualty Co., 197 N.Y. 420, 428-429 (1910) (“It is a custom for persons to bear the surnames of their parents, but it is not obligatory. A man may lawfully change his name without resort to legal proceedings, and for all purposes the name thus assumed will constitute his legal name just as much as if he had borne it from birth”). ↩
- Leone v. Comm’r, Ind. Bur. of Motor Vehs., 933 N.E.2d at 1253. ↩
- See e.g. Clinton v. Morrow, 220 Ark. 377, 382 (Ark. 1952) (“This statute does not destroy or modify the common law right to change one’s name and should be considered as in aid of, and supplementary to, such right”). ↩
- Leone v. Comm’r, Ind. Bur. of Motor Vehs., 933 N.E.2d at 1254. ↩
- The Social Security Administration says as much now on its website. Social Security Administration, “U.S. Citizen — Adult Change Name On Social Security Card,” Social Security Online (http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10513.html : accessed 17 May 2017). ↩
- Lee v. Superior Court, 11 Cal. Rptr. 2d 763 (Cal. App. 1992). ↩
- In re Variable, 190 P.3d 354 (N.M. Ct. App. 2008). ↩
- In re Porter, 31 P.3d 519 (Utah 2001). ↩
- Act of 29 June 1906, 34 Stat. 596, § 6. ↩
- Today’s immigrants can only obtain a name change if naturalized by a judge, and not by an immigration officer. Since there isn’t always a judge available, it may slow down the process but they still don’t need to file a separate petition or pay another fee. See generally USCIS Form N-400, Application for Naturalization (http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/n-400.pdf : accessed 17 May 2017). See also 8 C.F.R. Parts 337 and 338. ↩
- Board for Certification of Genealogists®, Genealogy Standards (Nashville, Tenn. : Ancestry, 2014), Standard 12 at 12, Standard 57 at 34-35. ↩
My 2nd husband’s family surname was Kunkle, an Americanized version of their German surname Guenckel. They were very proud of their name and were adamant that the spelling was Kunkle, NOT Kunkel. Lo and behold, in their research, they found a contract signed by two brothers, one spelling the surname Kunkle, and other Kunkel.