>It used to be the case that when people came to the US, the immigration offficers would "Americanize" their names. They couldn't spell the names, so wrote down what it sounded like.
That is actually still a problem with people who come from Iran, for example, where they don't use the Latin alphabet. The name has to be transliterated, and I don't think there is a common standard for that.
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
