Nerd,

We cross posted. You wrote:

I'm pretty sure she's Jewish so it probably was not her family's original name. Probably taken because Lodovnik or Lodznik (or whatever) was too hard for the Ellis Island folks.

There were people working at Ellis who were fluent in many languages. This wasn't a case of an English speakers-only staff facing a wall of foreign language speakers. There were many people working at Ellis who had immigrated themselves, or whose families immigrated earlier and they spoke other languages fluently. No one had trouble with someone else's language and said "that sounds like this in English, use this name." Think about it. The average inspection took only a couple of minutes. Most immigrants were only on the island for a couple of hours, tops. You climb the stairs, you speak with someone who (in your scenario) doesn't speak your language, and you don't speak theirs. And in those two minutes they somehow convey to you that instead of using Lodovnik you're now to use London? And you'll remember that name that is in a foreign language?

No, it just didn't happen that way. And people are packrats, they keep important papers. A slip purported to tell you your new name would be important, and would be kept, along with immigration papers, birth and marriage certificates, etc. Many of those documents have made their way back to Ellis, but not one form saying that "this is your new name." And how would the immigration people keep track of new names? If they did change names, they would have to keep records, jotting a new name down on some record sheet or perhaps the manifest. But it didn't happen.

People can come up with all of the annecdotal Ellis Island name change stories they want, but if you want to ask someone who worked there and spent years researching the topic of immigration through Ellis Island, you now know the truth of it.

SRS