David Ritchie wrote:
OK, I TRIED--I REALLY tried--for at least an hour to avoid doing this, but I'm getting weaker as I get older. So here goes:At dinner I was talking with someone about Ellis Island's tendency to re-name immigrants. "Oh," she said, "my maiden name was one of those. It's a garbled version of the Czech for, 'Did you ask me my name?'" This small tale amused me so much it cheered me through a whole day's small stresses.
A young Chinese-American woman had the unusual name "Ferguson." When asked how she got it, she said that when her father was coming through Ellis Island he got the name Ferguson in a mix-up. The man ahead of him was from Germany, and when asked his name, that man said "Ach! Ich hab schon vergessen!" "OK, Shaun Ferguson" the clerk said as he wrote the name down. That didn't make sense to the man asking the Chinese woman about her father's name; he was behind the German. "Oh, when my father was asked his name, he said "Sam Ding" and so the clerk said, "That's funny" as he wrote down Shaun Ferguson again."
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