The newer immigrants, indeed, do not wait for the birth of children to demonstrate their naturalization; they change their own given names immediately they land. I am told by Abraham Cahan that this is done almost universally on the East Side of New York. "Even the most old-fashioned Jews immigrating to this country," he says, "change /Yosel/ to /Joseph/, /Yankel/ to /Jacob/, /Liebel/ to /Louis/, /Feivel/ to /Philip/, /Itzik/ to /Isaac/, /Ruven/ to /Robert/, and /Moise/ or /Motel/ to /Morris/." Moreover, the spelling of /Morris/, as the position of its bearer improves, commonly changes to /Maurice/, though the pronunciation may remain /Mawruss/, as in the case of Mr. Perlmutter. The immigrants of other stocks follow the same habit. Every Bohemian /Vaclav/ or /Vojtĕch/ becomes a /William/, every /Jaroslav/ becomes a /Jerry/, every /Bronislav/ a /Barney/, and every /Stanislav/ a /Stanley/. The Italians run to /Frank/ and /Joe/; so do the Hungarians and the Balkan peoples; the Russians quickly drop their national system of nomenclature and give their children names according to the American plan. Even the Chinese laundrymen of the big cities become /John/, /George/, /Charlie/ and /Frank/; I once encountered one boasting the name of /Emil/. The Puritan influence, in names as in ideas, has remained a good deal more potent in American than in England. The given name of the celebrated /Praise-God/ Barebones marked a fashion which died out in England very quickly, but one still finds traces of it in America, /e. g./, in such women's names as /Faith/, /Hope/, /Prudence/, /Charity/ and /Mercy/, and in such men's names as /Peregrine/.[31] The religious obsession of the New England colonists is also kept in mind by the persistence of Biblical names: /Ezra/, /Hiram/, /Ezekial/, /Zachariah/, /Elijah/, /Elihu/, and so on. These [Pg285] names excite the derision of the English; an American comic character, in an English play or novel, always bears one of them. Again, the fashion of using surnames as given names is far more widespread in America than in England. In this country, indeed, it takes on the character of a national habit; fully three out of four eldest sons, in families of any consideration, bear their mothers' surnames as middle names. This fashion arose in England during the seventeenth century, and one of its fruits was the adoption of such well-known surnames as /Stanley/, /Cecil/, /Howard/, /Douglas/ and /Duncan/ as common given names.[32] It died out over there during the eighteenth century, and today the great majority of Englishmen bear such simple given names as /John/, /Charles/ and /William/--often four or five of them--but in America it has persisted. A glance at a roster of the Presidents of the United States will show how firmly it has taken root. Of the ten that have had middle names at all, six have had middle names that were family surnames, and two of the six have dropped their other given names and used these surnames.