Page "Ellis Island" Paragraph 45

A myth persists that government officials on Ellis Island compelled immigrants to take new names against their wishes.

In fact, no historical records bear this out.

Federal immigration inspectors were under strict supervision and were more interested in preventing inadmissible aliens from entering the country ( for which they were held accountable ) than in assisting them in trivial personal matters such as altering their names.

The inspectors used the passenger lists given to them by the steamship companies to process each foreigner.

These were the sole immigration records for entering the country and were prepared not by the U. S. Bureau of Immigration but by steamship companies such as the Cunard Line, the White Star Line, the North German Lloyd Line, the Hamburg-Amerika Line, the Italian Steam Navigation Company, the Red Star Line, the Holland America Line, and the Austro-American Line.

The Americanization of many immigrant families ' surnames was for the most part adopted by the family after the immigration process, or by the second or third generation of the family after some assimilation into American culture.

However, many last names were altered slightly due to the disparity between English and other languages in the pronunciation of certain letters of the alphabet.