Shmuel Gelbfisk
Samuel Goldfish
Sam Goldwyn
A couple of weeks ago I read Goldwyn’s biography (really worth a read). Apparently his family lived in the house of a fishmonger and so there was a sign with a fish on it and the fish was painted gold or yellow (‘gelb’).
And if you were unlucky enough to live in a place that changed hands more than once, like Alsace-Lorraine or at the eastern rim of the Hungaro-Austrian empire, your name might have been forced through more than one change mutation. For example like getting a french version first and having it germanized later or vice versa.
