Your family name did not come from a mistake at Ellis Island

So how did Jensen become Johnson, Koenigsberger become Kingsley, and Mlodzianowski become Murphy?

An Italian family prepares to pass through Ellis Island, 1905.
(Image credit: Lewis W Hine/Getty Images)
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Arika Okrent
Arika Okrent

Arika Okrent is editor-at-large at TheWeek.com and a frequent contributor to Mental Floss. She is the author of In the Land of Invented Languages, a history of the attempt to build a better language. She holds a doctorate in linguistics and a first-level certification in Klingon. Follow her on Twitter.

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