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Island. When his grandchild asks why, Phil responds: “Because they are

stupid, that’s why. And jealous. They disrespected a proud Italian heritage and named us after a ballet costume.” A popular 1994 children’s

book is entitled If Your Name Was Changed at Ellis Island. In an interview later in her life, Sophia Kreitzberg retells the story

that her stepfather told her about his time at Ellis Island. Officials asked

him his name and he replied Kogan. “Kogan Shmogan,” the inspector

allegedly told Sophia’s stepfather, “that’s not an American name,” and

the official renamed him Sam Cohen. “They gave everybody the name

of Cohen or Schwartz or something,” she said. “That’s why you find

so many Jewish people with the same ethnic names. They were given

those names by the people in Ellis Island.”

Then there is the joke about the Chinese laundry owner named

Moishe Pipik. When asked how a Chinese man got such a strange

name, Pipik explained: “At Ellis Island, I stand in line behind man

named Moishe Pipik. When my turn come, man ask my name, I say

‘Sam Ting.’ ” That a Chinese immigrant would easily pass through

Ellis Island, despite the Chinese Exclusion Act, signals the apocryphal

nature of the story.

Nearly all of these name-change stories are false. Names were not

changed at Ellis Island. The proof is found when one considers that

inspectors never wrote down the names of incoming immigrants. The

only list of names came from the manifests of steamships, filled out

by ship officials in Europe. In the era before visas, there was no official

record of entering immigrants except those manifests. When immigrants reached the end of the line in the Great Hall, they stood before

an immigration clerk with the huge manifest opened in front of him.

The clerk then proceeded, usually through interpreters, to ask questions based on those found in the manifests. Their goal was to make

sure the answers matched.

The only time immigration officials at Ellis Island wrote down

names was when immigrants were held for hearings or medical help.

Officials would include aliases and possible permutations of the names

of such immigrants on their paperwork. However, these were not official documents, just internal paperwork, and did not have the power

to change an immigrant’s name officially.

Name changes largely occurred either on the other side of the Atlantic, when steamship officials recorded names in their manifests, or

after Ellis Island, when immigrants filled out naturalization papers or

other official documents. Often immigrants voluntarily chose to Americanize their names to adapt to their new home.

There is at least one instance of a name change at Ellis Island, however. Frank Woodhull, who had been born a woman named Mary

Johnson, but had lived the previous fifteen years of her life passing as

a man, arrived at Ellis Island listed as Frank Woodhull on the ship’s

manifest. After spending one day in detention while authorities figured

out whether to admit him, Woodhull was finally allowed to proceed to

New Orleans, but not before officials crossed out Woodhull’s name on

the ship’s manifest and penciled “Mary Johnson” in its stead. But this

was clearly an exceptional case.

Yet the name change story lives on as urban legend. Many Americans are convinced of its truth because their grandparents told them the story. It is a convenient myth that emphasizes the traumatic nature of Ellis Island and the supposed rough treatment of immigrants, as well as the facility’s role in Americanizing immigrants, often against their will. The story serves as a convenient cover for the uncomfortable fact that many immigrants voluntarily discarded their Old World names in an effort to assimilate into American society. Better to blame insensitive immigration officials than Grandpa for the fact that your

name is Smith and not Hryczyszyn.

The inclusive nature of the Wall, encompassing Massachusetts Puritans and Korean businessmen, as well