My Great Grandfather and Grandfather who both had very jewish sounding first names but not last names purchased a business in 1916 that was named after an Anglo family name. That business today still has the name some 95 years later and they didn’t change it in 1916 as they didn’t want it to sound too Jewish. The threat of anti-semitism has always been there so it was never changed. Today that is not the case but the mindset in the 1916 to 1980 time frame was such that it was best not to make any waves. Today we keep the name as its a very established company that is over 102 years old.
If I had a name like Akiba Hornstein and lived in the wild west then I would probably changed my name to fit in and run a business.
Fine, I can understand that. But wouldn't the logical thing be to change "Hornstein" to "Horn," not to "Giffords"?
BTW, the "wild west" in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was arguably the most tolerant section of the country with regard to Jews in general, part of the pioneer mentality. There were Jewish-owned businesses that displayed their family names without problems. Even to this day, there are maybe two hundred mostly small towns named after Jewish settlers.
I pointed out the success of Goldwater's retail stores (to cite just one example) in my previous posts.
Wyatt Earp’s last wife, Josephine Marcus, was Jewish - didn’t stop her from being with a great man.