A rose by any other name...

[Neko_Bast]

Names are improtant, which is one of the reasons I think people should be consider them carfully befor naming their kids.

My name is also my grandmas name and I think it sutes me very well. ( Jeanine biggrin ) I only go by a nickname because most people cant remember my given name or can't pronounce it corectly and the nickname is just easier. Allthough the nickname also maches me well ( Geenie ). As for a true name, the one I chose to be me, its not really pronounceable. ^-^ I do use a craft name in ritual but in my head I'm saying my true name.  

[Greeneyed_falcon]

I think names are important... for example, think of three names, and then notice how you react to them. Hearing the first name of say, your grandmother, could trigger all sorts of thought and emotions, as could the first name of your boyfriend/girlfriend, but in different ways.
I never took a craft name, because (a) I couldnt' find one that really fitted, and (B) both my first and last names are pretty unusual.

Annalixa: Are you telling me that immigrants had their Names changed when they reached America???? Why would you do that?  

[ShadowSharrow]

Greeneyed_falcon

Annalixa: Are you telling me that immigrants had their Names changed when they reached America???? Why would you do that?

Yep it was done by the processing officers, clerkc and even teachers to make the names more pronoucilble or in some cases more american.

http://genealogy.about.com/od/ellis_island/a/name_change.htm  

[Fiddlers Green]

Well, latinizing names was done generally for sake of having a central language of royalty.
As, in older eras, Latin was sorta a Lingua Franca for European nobility, and most writing was done in Latin... thus names were Latinised for keeping records, and only noble's names really needed to be kept for records.

Ah, Ellis island, so very cunning and creative...
You changed Tschwillige to Twilley. rolleyes  

[Annalixa]

ShadowSharrow

Greeneyed_falcon

Annalixa: Are you telling me that immigrants had their Names changed when they reached America???? Why would you do that?

Yep it was done by the processing officers, clerkc and even teachers to make the names more pronoucilble or in some cases more american.

http://genealogy.about.com/od/ellis_island/a/name_change.htm

Indeed. Your average American today probably doesn't know what to make of an ä or an ö or an å , so why would an Ellis Island officer a hundred years ago know? So it gets changed.

Other families who didn't have their names changed sometimes changed them anyway, for the sake of not sticking out as immigrants (though this is different from someone else dictating it, definitely).

Ellis Island FTW.  

[ShadowSharrow]

Which has resulsted in a whole load of white american searching for a cultural identiy..... oh joy.