NORWEGIAN-AMERICAN SURNAMES

Abstract

NORWEGIAN. AMERICAN SURNAMES1 BY MARJORIE M. KIMMERLE Through the analysis of the language of the immigrant we are beginning today to understand the more subtle problems of American immigration.2 Language is a highly sensitive instrument recording the mental habits and conflicts of the people who use it. The language of the immigrant reflects his mental struggle as he gives up his old culture and accepts, or adjusts himself to, a new one. Surnames are only a small part of his language, but they are especially significant inasmuch as they belong to individuals and are intimately connected with their daily lives. Surnames are, moreover, the most conservative and enduring element of the native language of the non-English speaking immigrant. Although most of his language must give way to American speech, his surnames retain permanent traces of his alien heritage. To be sure, some foreign names have been so Americanized that their origin is no longer recognizable, but there is still a great residue of surnames that have partially resisted change and still retain the earmarks of the land from which they came. They preserve some of the social history of their native environment. When foreign surnames are exchanged for American surnames or entirely lose their foreign character, the very loss of the alien element points to a parallel loss in the immigrant's native social heritage. Because surnames reflect both the old and the new culture of the immigrant in a very personal way, they serve as an excellent index to the social problems of immigration. 1 This article is based on a doctoral dissertation entitled " Norwegian Surnames of the Koshkonong and Springdale Congregations in Dane County, Wisconsin," written under the direction of Professor Einar Haugen of the department of Scandinavian languages at the University of Wisconsin. See Emar Haugen, Language and Immigration, in Norwegian- American Studies and Records , 10: 1-43 (Northfield, 1038). 1 2 STUDIES AND RECORDS All non-English speaking foreigners have had to change their surnames to meet the linguistic demands of the new country. Either because they do not want to be recognized as foreigners or because they find it convenient, and indeed sometimes necessary, to adjust their names to American habits of speech, they have changed their surnames by transliteration , translation, or shortening, or have arbitrarily chosen an already existing American name that is near in sound to their foreign name. Schnäbele , for instance, becomes Snabely by transliteration; Giannopoulos becomes Johnson by translation; Saarikoski becomes Koski by shortening; and Oven becomes Owens , a good American name near in sound to Oven ? All non-English speaking foreigners have had to Americanize their names in these ways, but some foreigners, especially the Norwegians who came from the rural sections of Norway during the middle of the nineteenth century, have had an additional problem, that of changing their custom of naming. The surname in America has always been a family name, a name used by all members of the family and handed down from one generation to another by the male descendants. But the emigrant from rural Norway who came to America during the middle of the nineteenth century did not have a stabilized system of family names. He used the active patronymic (his father's given name with the word son or clatter added thereto), combined with the name of the farm on which he lived. But neither the patronymic nor the farm name was a real family name. It is this custom of using active patronymics as well as farm names that has made NorwegianAmerican names unstable. When we find one Norwegian using the name Johannes Larsen Hollo in 1844, Johannes Larsen Hedemarken in 1849, John Larsen in 1850, and Johannes Johannsson in 1860, we know that for the Norwegian it was not simply a question of Americanizing one surname, 3 The examples are taken from H. L. Mencken, The American Language , 474554 (fourth edition, New York, 10S6). NORWEGIAN-AMERICAN SURNAMES 3 but of accepting a new custom and making a choice of one surname from two or more names that he brought with him from Norway. To study Norwegian- American surnames we must understand the social environment of the immigrant before he...