WHAT'S IN A NAME? I GIVE UP!

Here is a partial transcript of a letter the INS sent to my cousin after he requested documents concerning our grandfather:

'Our records indicate that Mr. Gombatta has used the following names: Philip GOMBATTA, AKA: Filippo GAMMETTA, AKA: Filippo GAMBETTA, AKA: Philip GOMBATTO, AKA: Philip GOMMETTO, AKA: Philip AMATO, AKA: Philip GAMMETTA'.

Okay. You're an immigrant, arriving in this country; turn of the 20th century. You want to fit in. You want to simplify your name, sometimes going as far as Anglicizing it. But this? Are they kidding? And, if so, who was doing the kidding; my great grandparents or the INS? Christ! There's only one way to say it: gahm-MET-tah.

In as far as simplification is concerned, I would have went with either a) Gammetta or b) Amato.

Maybe the INS were playing a twisted game with the immigrants: choose a paper slip randomly from a bingo-type rolling cage and whatever you came out with, that was your name.

Side note: every time I see the letters INS, I think of The Independent News Service, the agency who did the wrong thing back in the 70's of hiring Karl Kolchak as one of it's reporters.

Calogero Gammetta indeed!