What's in a Name?

A famous, fictional, Renaissance Italian lover once asked his beloved, “What's in a name?” Well, for me, plenty. And it has nothing to do with lovers, roses, or any woman I may have known in my life-- in the biblical sense or otherwise. You see, my name isn't really my name and I don't know how I got this name that isn't mine.

Confused? Yeah. Me too. I've been confused my whole life about this. My legal last name, Gurdine, is a mystery. A bona fide conundrum. A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. A question without an answer. Leastwise, an answer I've ever discovered.

To better explain the puzzling mystery that is my legal name and why the answer I seek eludes me (and everyone else still living in my family) let's jump into Mr. Peabody's WABAC machine and go back, way back, to sometime around the turn of the century. Not the last turning of the century but the one before that. That's when another Italian, this one real but not famous, not particularly well spoken nor in love at the time, came to America. A young Italian stallion by the name of Pasquale Giordano who had no idea what life had in store for him as he passed through America's most famous immigration gateway, a place called Ellis Island. One thing I do know about Pasquale back then: He believed his life would be a better life coming to America.

Ellis Island was a place where, I'm certain, many immigrants' names were changed from what they were in their places of origin to something else. Something new. Something slightly more American or somewhat easier to pronounce or spell or simply something that was the result of clerical errors or communications breakdowns between newly arrived immigrants and U.S. Immigration officials. But not so for Pasquale. His name remained Giordano. I know this because I've seen his Green Card as well as his Social Security card. My sister has them both, the originals, and both identify him as Pasquale Giordano which, many years later, was rightfully inscribed on his tombstone.

Pasquale and Maria Giordano, circa 1940s

Not long after arriving in America, Pasquale would meet another Italian immigrant, a woman named Maria Miele. Sometime later, Pasquale and Maria wed. Soon, they started a family. In all, they produced eight children: two sons and six daughters. One of those sons, the second son and last child born to Pasquale and Maria who they named Luigi, would also later father a son. Actually, two of them. Plus, a daughter. If you haven't already guessed it, Luigi's son is me, Jimmy, first son to Pasquale's second son.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Giordano, I'm told, is not an uncommon name in Italy which, of course, makes it a not too uncommon name in America, leastwise amongst Italian-Americans. That's because a lot of Italians came to America back around the same time Pasquale did and, I'm guessing, a fair number of them must also have had the not uncommon Italian family name of Giordano.

Giordano is the Italian form of the name Jordan. The Giordano surname has its roots in "Yarden," the Hebrew name of the Jordan river flowing between the countries of Jordan and Israel. It is derived from "yarad," meaning "descend" or "flow down." Apparently, the river must have dried up because, for my family, the name didn't manage to descend or flow down further than my grandfather.

Again, I've gotten ahead of myself.

All of Pasquale and Maria Giordano's children were born at home. None of them, due to the time period and the circumstances of their home-births I suppose, were issued birth certificates, including my Dad. They lived in Sloatsburg, NY, a sleepy hamlet located about 25 or 30 miles northwest of New York City, just above Suffern, NY, nestled amongst the Ramapo Mountains not far from Greenwood Lake. It was a heavily wooded area, not overly populated back then.

The Giordano/Gurdine Family, Sloatsburg, NY, circa 1950

I know that a few years before the outbreak of WW2, the family was still using the name Giordano. My cousin has a driver's license that belonged to his father, my father's brother Santillo, from 1937 or 1938 and it calls his name out as Santillo Giordano. Everyone called him Sandy, by the way. Not Santillo. My Dad was called Louie by just about everyone, rather than his given name of Luigi.

Somewhere between the time the State of New York issued my uncle that late-1930s driver's license in the name Santillo Giordano, and soon after the outbreak of WW2 when both he and my father enlisted in the Army, the family name, leastwise my uncle's and my father's names, suddenly changed, or were listed, as Gurdine, but no one would ever tell me why or how that might have happened.

Gosh, Jimmy! Why didn't you just ask? I did, of course. Many times. And the answer was never the same, was never very specific, and never seemed to answer the question. I did not, by the way, merely ask my Dad. (Although I asked him more than I asked others.) You see, I asked my uncle as well as my six aunts. But I never received an answer that made sense or that agreed with what others were saying when asked. I asked the question numerous times throughout my life until all but one of them were gone. One of my Dad's sisters is still living in New Jersey. She's about 90 years old. But I haven't seen or spoken to her in at least twenty years.

My father, Luigi Giordano, during WW2

Here's a few of the answers to my question that I was told by various aunts, my uncle, or my Dad:

1. It was changed when my grandfather came through Ellis Island. (I know that's not true. I've seen his official government paperwork and it reads, “Giordano,” not “Gurdine.”)

2. School officials, a principal or a teacher, changed both my uncle's and my Dad's last name for undisclosed reasons, i.e, undisclosed to me. (That certainly doesn't sound believable. Plus, my uncle was already out of school when that driver's license was issued to him with the name Giordano.)

3. A priest changed my Dad's and my uncle's name. Say what? Since when do parish priests have the authority to legally change people's names? Perhaps hundreds of years ago or more. But not in and around 1940 or so.

4. I don't know. (At least that answer is believable coming from a few of them. But all of them were clueless? Please.)

I'll probably never find out how my name actually became a name that isn't my family name. I can't help but formulate a few theories and all of them revolve around some possible event that needed to be kept secret or that required a new name or an alias of some sort.

Did my grandfather or one of his children commit some serious crime? Was the entire family hiding out in plain sight with a new name for some unknown reason? Nether of those two possibilities make much sense to me, especially if you knew the people in my family as I knew them. They were all good, God-fearing, law-abiding, patriotic citizens from what I observed.

But still, strange things sometimes happen and people make mistakes that require changes, big changes, assuming something big requiring a big change actually took place and I'm not making much ado about nothing.  I've often thought of legally changing my name to Giordano but it seems like it would create more than a few hassles in my life I'm not sure I want to deal with. I guess I'll just have to live out my days with this mystery.

It sucks... but wha'd'ya gonna do?