Americanization; Civics; Immigrants -- United States; Naturalization -- United States; Noncitizens -- United States
Each nationality has in this country name-complications of this
character peculiarly its own. The Swedes, for an example, have
a habit of taking for their own surname the Christian name of a
favorite aunt, uncle, or other relative, upon reaching the age
of twenty-one years. Sven Svensen--which means “Sven, the son of
Sven”--may undertake to compliment his uncle Olaf by calling himself
Sven Olafsen. Suppose he came to this country under the name of
Sven Svensen, before he was eighteen; but for several years before
filing his declaration came to be known to everybody--including
himself--as Sven Olafsen, and regarded his old name as a “childish
thing” of no consequence to anybody. He applies as Sven Olafsen
for his certificate of arrival, the immigration and naturalization
bureaus have great difficulty in finding it, and when it does come
along it is in the name of Sven Svensen. Often names are adopted
in affectionate memory of the town from which the alien comes.
Many Italians, for convenience, drop off a couple of syllables of
awkwardly long names. Among the Greeks a typical case would be that
of one, “Harris,” whose old-country name was Harralabopoulos.
Another kind of complication appears in the case of an alien whose
true name was Isaac Brody; but he came on a steamship ticket issued
to, and in the name of, his uncle, Isaac Boovris, and was recorded
under that name by the immigration authorities. When he filed his
declaration of intention he was advised to file under the name
Boovris, to facilitate his certificate of arrival when that should
be required. When he filed his final petition, after living and
doing business for several years in this country under his true name
of Brody, he asked to be naturalized under that name. The court
refused, requiring him to file a new declaration as Isaac Brody and
wait two years longer, calling attention to the penal statute which
makes it an offense to apply for naturalization under an assumed
or fictitious name; remarking that the court might have changed
the name or amended the petition “if the error in the original
declaration had been clerical, or had been innocent.”[77]
A Pennsylvania court said in the case of one Wicenty Pilipos, who
after arrival informally changed his name to William Phillips:
We may concede that any person may change his name, and be
naturalized under his new name; yet, if he does so, he must
petition the court for that purpose, so that the record will show
the whole transaction, and identify him as the person who has
discarded his original name, under which he landed in this country.
This is especially necessary to prevent any other person from
perpetrating a fraud, by being naturalized under the discarded
name.[78]
THE PETITION FOR NATURALIZATION
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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