Amy at Brotmanblog: A Family Journey asked how the surname Scheshko became Castle. I thought that I had explained that in a previous post, but I cannot find that I mentioned it.
After Murray and Diana moved from NYC to Michigan with their two children, Murray decided to change their last name. You can see what the petition states as to the reason. It fits exactly with what the gardener always told me about the name change.
“The name Scheshko has caused embarassment to myself and my family. People have a hard time remembering the name and a hard time pronouncing it.”
What the petition doesn’t state is how Murray arrived at the name Castle.
He picked it out of a phone book, or so the story goes.
I did “redact” the names and birth dates of the gardener and his sister from the document.
Here are the two pieces of text I removed!
at Palmer Lake, Michigan
first home after NYC, before the name change in Kalamazoo
Entering the Pale 
So the gardener was aware of the name change. How did he feel about it? Is there any connection between the meaning of Scheshko and Castle or just a random selection? And do you really think that that was the only reason he changed the name—it wasn’t due to anti-Semitism or xenophobia?
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Never mind on one of those—I found your blog post. https://enteringthepale.com/2018/02/20/where-did-their-surnames-come-from/
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Yes, Scheshko is definitely not Castle :).
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It could have been the latter, although he never told the gardener that. I think people mangled the name right and left, and he found that annoying and didn’t want his kids to go through that. I see that you already discovered the post about the meaning of Scheshko and that it doesn’t mean Castle.
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It’s so wild to think that he just opened the phone book and picked out the name. I like ‘Castle’ great name change! But I like Scheshko too 🙂 Love the photo too –
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Thanks, Sharon! You would be amazed how many people volunteer that they love the name Castle! It seems to resonate with people as a surname. We say we live at Casa Castle haha. For me it was a little strange because I grew up with a name that was made up of a lot of straight soldier consonants (both first and last names), so adding a curling C after Luanne felt weird to me LOL.
They are a couple of cuties in that photo.
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Interesting. I don’t think it’s a difficult name to spell or remember. I had some friend of Polish origin and their last names were impossible. There were composed of the less frequent consonants (like x, z, j, q, etc.) punctuated with an occasional vowel. Castle would be easier though.
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You would be surprised how hard it is to deal with people over the phone with the name Castle. hahaha I have to say “Castle like a Queen’s castle” or “Castle like a house.” I guess no matter what name you have, somebody wants to mangle it. One of my worst memories of that is at my wedding. The gardener’s uncle (who has not been on this blog yet) was asked to do the toast. He toasted the gardener and “Luella.” Um, who is that?!
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Your husband’s first wife? 🙂 Perhaps he was taste testing the toast potent!
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LOL! We were 19!!!
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🙂
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I must have missed this, too. Love the photo.
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Thanks, Sheila. They were so cute. It is a leap to change from Scheshko to Castle!
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Is it hard to find name change documents? Particularly if you don’t even know for certain a name was changed?
I think any name can get mangled, no matter how simple. Some people think my last name is Ryan!
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I don’t know. I knew there would be one, so I asked Wayne Loney, a Kalamazoo genealogist to look for it for me. He has been such a blessing.
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So interesting! In the case of my grandparents, their names were randomly changed for them when they came from Finland. Nice that he got to choose his name.
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Well, he was born in the United States, but his parents names were not changed when they came to this country. Was it that Finish names were so extremely difficult? Must have felt so hostile though.
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I think the Finnish names were quite difficult to pronounce, and my grandparents wanted to learn/speak English. I have a faint memory of one of my aunts (all have now passed away) saying that they gave my grandfather the option to select a name.
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Oh, don’t you wish you had written that down when she told you?!
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Indeed I do. I did write down many things, and my mom wrote a family history of her mother’s relatives, so at least I have a record of the main details. I loved sitting around with my four aunts and many cousins listening to stories! I miss them a lot.
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Oh, I’m sorry, Carla. But what lovely memories!
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The Squire’s family name was originally Rhys, which is Welsh. Someplace along the line it was changed to Rice, but even as simply as that is, it gets gebozzled. Rush, Ruth, Rouse. . . My sister wanted me to pick up an Australian flag for her, but when I went after it, the clerk couldn’t find it. “Did she perhaps order it under my name?” The clerk went and looked, and then the manager, an older man, had a go. He came out chuckling. “You’ll never guess how this was listed.”
Fannie Brice.
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LOL!!!!!!!! That’s a good one!!!!
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