George Gershwin

[15goddess15]

How did Jacob Gershowitz become George Gershwin?

[15goddess15]

I know that his father change the name to Gershwin after imigrating to New York, however how did Jacob become George?

[Metz]

found this about his surname ...........George was a great admirer of the comedian Ed Wynn and it is at this time, in honor of him, that Gershwin changed the end of his last name
Nothing about Jacob though.

[15goddess15]

cheers n e way :D

[Whickerman]

this from http://open-site.org/Arts/Music/Composition/Co mposers/Gershwin,_George/Childhood_and_Ancestr y/


They were in residence at a two-story Brooklyn brick house in a Jewish suburb, at the address 242 Snedicker Avenue, when Jacob Gershovitz was delivered into the world by a Dr Ratner, who remembered Morris as a �leather worker� and Rose as �Rosa Brushkin.�

The change of name form Gershovitz to Gershwin was somewhat of a complex matter to explain; �it is possible that by the time he (Morris) married he had streamlined his name to Gershwin� (Jablonski, 1987), and it is also a mystery how George Gershwin was never named Jacob or Jake, yet registered on his birth certificate as Jacob Gershwin. Many sources I researched in preparation for compiling this report informed me that �George Gershwin� was infact the American alternative to �Jacob Gershovitz.� This causes the truth to be concealed, but I would suggest an errror in the birth registry, and Morris�s change of surname simply a shortened Jewish version of the original name.

George Gershwin was named in memory of his grandfather; this would mean that Yahov Gershovitz, the artistic talent of one of the greatest people in American musical history, had already died.