A Rosenberg by Any Other Name: Jewish Name Changing in the 20th Century

with Kirsten Fermaglich (Michigan State)

Our images of name changing are frequently clichés: movie stars who adopted new names or Ellis Island officials who changed immigrants’ names. Kirsten Fermaglich upends these clichés by examining previously unexplored name change petitions. In twentieth-century New York City, thousands of ordinary Jews legally changed their names to respond to institutionalized antisemitism. While name changing allowed Jewish families to achieve middle-class status, the practice also became a source of family pain and community stigma.

Kirsten Fermaglich is Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Michigan State University.  Her most recent book, A Rosenberg by Any Other Name:  A History of Jewish Name Changing in America (NYU, 2018), was awarded the Saul Viener prize for the best book in American Jewish history in 2019.  She is also the author of American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares (Brandeis University Press, 2006) and the co-editor of the Norton Critical Edition of Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (2013), with Lisa Fine. She was a National Archives Distinguished Fellow in 2022-2023.  From 2016 through 2021, she was co-editor of the journal, American Jewish History, along with Daniel Soyer and Adam Mendelsohn.

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