What's In A Name?

One of the obstacles I have encountered when researching my family tree is the number of ways a surname may have changed. For instance, Reeser can be spelled Reiser, Eickhoff can be spelled Eikhoff, Koogler can be spelled Kugler - and those are just a handful of instances. So why does the spelling of names change?

I see a couple reasons for this. First, language is not static, it is constantly changing. Some names, like words, are just archaic – much like reading an old King James Bible or Shakespeare. For instance, we no longer use words like “Thee and Thou.” Spelling changes may also depend on the country of origin and language it was written in at the time. Even today, a name originating in a different country may lose its original meaning and spelling in another country based on sound and/or ease of writing.

At this time of year as we get close to Thanksgiving, we think of Pilgrims and Native Americans. During the winter of 1620, many crew and passengers had died aboard the Mayflower in Plymouth, Massachusetts. So when the pilgrims set foot on shore on March 21, 1621, they were astonished when a Native American walked in amongst them and spoke to them in their own language. His name, as they understood it, was Samoset. Which meant something like “He Who Walks Over Much.”

However, his name was also possibly spelled as “Somerset.” There is confusion here because of different written accounts of the history of that time. Samoset sounds a bit like Somerset and the history of the account was written by Englishmen who were familiar with Somerset in England.

“Squanto” (whose name means something like “Divine Rage” or “Rage of Manitou”), the Native American who guided and interpreted for the Pilgrims during their first winter in the New World, also had different spellings of his name including “Tisquantum” and “Squantum.”

Question for you – do you have a proper name that is consistently misspelled? How about your family surname - have you had changes in the spelling?

These changes do not need to be viewed as necessarily right or wrong. They involve where the person was born, the language they spoke, the decades and centuries the name may have endured and was passed down, and the mobility of the family across borders and oceans.

When I sit across from my friends and family at Thanksgiving, I think of the many generations that have brought us together. Our names may or may not have meaning and they may be spelled very differently but what brings us together is what matters most.

A few books that would be good to read on this topic include, The Son Also Rises by Gregory Clark, A Dictionary Of Surnames by Patrick Hanks, The First Thanksgiving by Sarah Gilman and Squanto, 1585? - 1622 by Arlene B. Hirshfelder.

If you are interested in researching your own family tree, visit your local branch to use AncestryLibrary for free.  Click on the “learning center” tab for tips to begin your genealogy search.

- Esther, Lawrence Branch