142 Misc. 852 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1932
Petitioner, a youth of nineteen, by means of his father’s petition, seeks to change his name from Emanuel Voltaire Cohen to Emanuel Voltaire Conason. Under the common law a man may change his name at will for an honest purpose. (Smith v. U. S. Casualty Co., 197 N. Y. 420.) As Judge Vann further observes in his learned historical review of the subject, the statutory provision
While the instant application is founded upon what might be deemed a legally honest purpose and would ordinarily be granted, one of the reasons pleaded by the petitioner cannot be passed by in silence. Cohen desires to enter as a student in a famous old
It may be true, as the petition avers, that the name is “ extremely common,” meaning thereby, I hope, nothing worse than that it is borne by a great many persons. But so is the name “ Smith; ” and although, as our great New England poet Holmes so genially said, “ Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith,” many a distinguished American by that name has refused to stay concealed. In the case of “ Cohen ” fate reveals rather than conceals. The name is the transliteration in English of the generic Hebrew word for the priests of the temple. (Exodus, 28; Numbers, 3; Catholic Ency. vol. XII, p. 407; see particularly Encyclopedia Britannica [14th ed.], vol. XVIII, p. 480, where the transliteration is given as “ Kohen.”) It signifies that the bearer is most probably a descendant of that class, and in a sense constitutes a badge or title of nobility. It is doubly strange that petitioner who intends to dwell in the select New England circles, should desire to conceal his aristocratic Old Testament origin among a people whose first names show the marked influence of Old Testament appellation, and many of whose picturesque and non-Anglo-Saxon given or Christian names will tend to recall to him the atmosphere in which was born the name from which he now seeks to escape. I do not find it necessary here to consider the materialistic motives which prompt a person to change an historic name for a colorless one, as I have already expressed my views on this phase in Matter of Levy (N. Y. L. J. Jan. 24, 1928). Let him not, however, again make reference to an honored name by calling it un-American.
With this admonition the court will grant the application on condition that the petitioner delete the offensive expression to which reference has been made. He may then resubmit the petition for approval.
Code Civ. Proc, § 2415; now Civil Rights Law, §§ 60-64.- [Rep.