Way up the list Ellenpolly said: And then there are the names that got changed at Ellis Island.

This is actually a myth. The immigration people at Ellis were some of the most skilled individuals when it came to foreign names, after all the saw hundreds of them every day. If you look at the Ellis records, nearly all immigrants were marked down with their names completely intact. This is because the immigration records were compiled using the ship manifests.

What happened is that many of the new immigrants changed their own names to fit in and find work. Since this wasn't the proudest day for these "yearning to breathe free-ers" the myth arose.