Here's a tip that I learned regarding the names of married Hungarian women. When looking for my Hungarian grandmother, Katarina Weincz, in the ships' passenger lists I found that one of the lists recorded her name as Janosné Weincz. Upon further research, I learned that the Hungarian custom for formal address of a married woman was to replace her first name with that of her husband's, and add to it the suffix -né, which means 'wife of'. So, Janosné Weincz literally translates to Mrs. Janos Weincz. On this particular trip, Katarina was a young woman traveling alone with a baby, and she didn't speak any English. Her ancestors were Donauschwaben, so her native customs and language were German; but she would have been very familiar with the traditional Hungarian customs and language, as well. She was probably trying to emphasize to the immigration officials that she was indeed a married woman. Additionally, traditional Hungarian name order is the reverse from western name order. Like many Eastern name traditions, the family name is first, followed by the individual given name.
Annie Strack
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