Names translated into English

Why names move

A Sephardic family name could pass through Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, Castilian, Portuguese, Ladino, Ottoman Turkish, Dutch, French and English — each with its own orthography, and most of them written by a scribe recording a name he had only heard spoken. Add forced baptism, which replaced names outright, and emigration, which anglicised them again.

• Translation of meaning. A name meaning “good man” or a trade becomes the local equivalent.
• Phonetic respelling. The sound is kept, the spelling is rebuilt in the new language's conventions.
• Substitution at baptism. A saint's name or the godparent's surname replaces the original entirely.
• Toponymic adoption. The family takes the name of the town it moved to or from — which is why so many Iberian surnames are places.