>Hi,
>
>Just curious, when a family immigrates in the US or Canada or Argentina or whatever country, do they eventually alter the first name and surname. If so, why and how?
>
>I'm asking this, because here in the Netherlands this is currently not the practice. The result is that a lot of immigrants have names that 'we' can hardly or not at all pronounce. A solution I see is that people alter their original name when they immigrate.

When my grandparents immigrated about 100 years ago their last names were changed because they could not read or write English. The immigration officer made a fair guess at what the transliteration of their names might be, but it was only close, not exact.

During the 20's, 30's, and 40's a great many 2nd generation Americans changed their names to be more "American." My uncle Itzach became Isaac, another uncle changed his last name from Prussack to Parker.

A number of families changed their name to avoid the rampant anti-semitic and anti-immigrant nature of the times. My ex father-in-law used to play guessing games about what the original name used to be. (Abe Altemonte used to be Avram Hochberg, etc.)