Name change

The story of our family tree begins with Baruch ben Lipman, choosing a family name. He
chose a name somehow reminiscent of Baruch, and at the same time very much suited the
new environment where it was swarming with Protestant Borchardts. Moreover, it sounds
like his mother's name before her marriage. And yet this choice was an extraordinary one,
for many of the Jews chose, for example, a family name according to the place where they
were born and grew up, because they mostly did not get old there anyway. And so Baruch's
sons and grandsons were often called Coeslin instead of Borchardt. All this is part of the
story before the great catastrophe. In the 19th century, and at the beginning of the 20th
century, but especially after the huge catastrophe, the naming or change of name has a
different, a reverse sign.

One of the special phenomena on our tree is the fact, that young people - there are always
men - decide to change their family names.
Again and again I am asked: How in God's name did you find me? Indeed, this is much more
difficult when I look for women who marry and get a new family name, and men who decide
that they want a new name.
The vast majority of people living today on our tree are descendants of Borchardt, who
emigrated to the US and the UK and to Palestine (or later to Israel). In precisely these cases,
the phenomenon of deliberate change of name is fairly common. In young Israel it was the
norm to delete the old Diaspora-name and to choose a new Hebrew one. So Borchardt
became Bar'am or Tsuri'el, Pariser became Peri, Kaufmann to Kadman, Michel became
Michaeli (all four: phonetic approximation, but Bar'am and Kadman have also a ideological
component), or Borchardt became Sivan, Applebaum became Shezaf (a kind of translation,
but Shezaf is not an apple tree, but the Syrian Christ's Thorn [lat: Ziziphus spina-christi]), a
tree that is very connected to this country here on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean,
not to be confused with Shesif = plum), Weichselbaum became Raviv (he was one of the
founders of Kibbutz Revivim).
The Borchardt's and their descendants, who emigrated to the English-speaking world,
especially those who emigrated to America, sometimes changed their names. Many
Borchardt's dropped the -t, and it was Borchard therefrom. Max Borchardt changed his
name to Max Borger (the name Borchardt is "... apt to be misspelled ..", he gave as the
reason.), Werner Borchardt changed its name to Borden. So Klasky became Klayton,
Friedlnder became Fried, Becker became Baker, Kosterlitz became Koster, Krotoszyner
became Kroto, Reichenheim became Rickham, Hartstein became Hart, Hirschfeld became
Hartley, Aschaffenburg became Andy (in the case of Katja) or Cordy (in the case of her cousin
Meta), etc.
They are almost always men who do this. The last two cases are exceptions, and it has to do
with the fact that these two women appeared on stage, and that in turn has to do with the
topic pseudonyms (see below). Whoever willfully changed his name, in the cases of Israel
and USA (and UK), wanted to belong to the new linguistic and cultural community that they
have chosen. An immigration to another country and to with another culture is a kind of
rebirth. When I immigrated to Israel, just the new LP by Matti Caspi came out: "This is my
second childhood," and the song in the disc, which gave it its name, accompanied me on my
new path. A new name is therefore a logical consequence.
Another reason for the deliberate change of name is the "emigration" to Christianity. David
Mendel, grandson of Rechel Gottschalk born Borchardt, was baptized in 1806, and since
then his name was August Wilhelm Neander Johann, and as such he is known as a Protestant
theologian and professor of church history. Similarly, Hermann Joelsohn changed his name
to Hermann Borchardt (his mother was Lina Joelsohn ne Borchardt), because he believed
that this name sounds less Jewish. (There was probably another reason that has to do with
the relationship with his father.)
And that brings us to the pseudonyms: The most famous case is of course that of Georg
Hermann, the pseudonym for Georg Borchardt, who elected his father's first name as a
surname. Bruno Borchardt, the socialist politician who was murdered by the Nazis, called
himself sometimes Charles Wernher, the poet Rudolf Borchardt called himself sometimes
Spectator Germanicus, Ruth Borchard born Berendsohn wrote an interesting book on the
detention in the Isle of Man under the name Anne Medley.
A special case is the one of the three Borchardt Brothers who changed their name still in
Germany: the one, Solomon, called himself Solomon Eisenberg, the other Scharlach, the
third Steinberg. We found the first. The poet John Hollander was one of his numerous great-
grandchildren. The last two we have not yet found. Here the reason is different, and we are
still not sure what the reason was. But there are two options: One of their cousins, Ludwig-
Louis Borchardt, who later became a pediatrician in Manchester and friend of Marx and
Engels, was involved in the 1848 revolution in Germany. Perhaps they were too, and they
did not like to sit in prison like him. Another reason could be that they ran away from
military service.
Thus, when the Jews had traditionally carried the place where they came from in the form of
their family name, the reverse happened in the wake of the terrible 20th century: they
stripped away both the place of origin, its culture and their own name.

The irony of history: I too have changed my name, and now I have a name that is well known
in Israel, but not because of me but because of other Uri Shani's, which I'm not particularly
proud of. And now for more than a year I've been looking for people, some of them make
me a particular problem with the fact that they have changed their names.

slevine@clf.org, zpeles@walla.com, hilasha7@gmail.com, roeipeles@gmail.com,

deniseperi@walla.com, amievie1@aol.com, kadsheck@juno.com,
adampenmichaeli@gmail.com, mi_rnl@hazorea.org.il, shezaf.net@gmail.com,
graviv@gmail.com, danbordan@gmail.com, 220963@gmail.com, ratnere@gmail.com,
jonborchard@blueyonder.co.uk, terry_borchard1@yahoo.com, smk@becounsel.com,
ronijay@aol.com, tracy.klayton@gmail.com, jenniferlentschke@hotmail.com,
drickham@yahoo.com, hans@comped.org, walrus77@comcast.net, njohnston@surplus-
excesslines.com, martha.hollander@hofstra.edu, freshkillsmusic@mac.com,
helainep2p@gmail.com, rachelimarion@gmail.com, seth@larchmonttemple.org,
kenmarion@gmail.com,
zefys therese kronheim, klara kronheim, ernestine kronheim, Georg Borchardt april1918,
salomon aron borchardt, martin borchardt 1928, Louis Borchardt 1922, Hedwig Borchardt
1900, Paul Borchardt 1923, Salomon Borchardt 1906, Bertha Borchardt 1927, Gustav
Borchardt 1917,