When Jewish Americans decided to exchange their overtly Jewish-sounding surnames for more Anglo-Saxon ones, it was not because they were just-arrived immigrants who realized their names were difficult for native English speakers to pronounce. Rather, name-changing petitions presented to American courts in the period around World War I were usually filed by those who were already entering the middle class and believed their old names would make it difficult for them, or for their children, to find employment. Kirsten Fermaglich writes:
By the 1930s, the vast majority of name changers [in New York City]—between 75 and 85 percent—wanted to abandon “foreign” names that were “difficult to pronounce and spell” and to adopt instead more “American” names. These individuals were hoping to shed the ethnic markers that disadvantaged them in American society by taking on unmarked, ordinary names that would go unnoticed.
Although New Yorkers of many different ethnic backgrounds—including those with Italian-, Slavic-, Armenian-, Greek-, and German-sounding names—petitioned to replace their ethnic names between 1917 and 1942, Jewish-sounding names predominated in the City Court files, far out of proportion to Jews’ actual numbers in the city. In 1932, for example, roughly 65 percent of the total pool of petitioners had Jewish-sounding names. By way of comparison, during that same year, the number of petitioners with Italian-sounding surnames (the next-largest ethnic group in the petitions during these years) represented roughly 11 percent of the petitioners.
The large number of Jewish name-change petitioners cannot be explained by the large presence of Jews in New York City. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Jewish population in New York City was roughly 26 to 29 percent. The Italian population at the same time was roughly 14 to 16 percent. Given those numbers, one might expect Jews to change their names at roughly double the rate of Italians, . . . not six times the rate of Italians, as was actually reflected in the petitions.
While Jewish middle-class strength was reflected in name-change petitions, however, the fact that roughly 65 percent of name-change petitioners had Jewish-sounding names in the 1930s also reflects the rise of institutionalized anti-Semitism during the interwar years. . . . Although anti-Semitism had existed in the United States before this era, it had not been a significant feature of American institutional, social, or political life. . . . In an era of exploding racial categories and fears at the turn of the century, however, Jewish difference became a far more important factor in American society.
Read more on Tablet: https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/270503/my-name-a-great-handicap