©WHAT ARE OUR REAL LAST NAMES?

By Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist.



I suppose that because I am an artist, I am hard-pressed to designate one color among the whole spectrum of colors that is my favorite. I appreciate each and every one of them for their unique contribution to our beautiful world. On the other hand, if someone put a gun to my head and told me to choose only one, I guess it would have to be the color of green.

                I also have a special connection to the color of green because of my surname, which, until my paternal grandfather stuck an extra “e” onto the end of it for reasons unknown, was actually “Green.” Ancestry.com indicates that the largest percentage of my DNA hails from Gaelic sources. We have traced our original paternal ancestor in America to one Stephen Green, who disembarked from Liverpool, England on his trek to the new world. This was sometime in the 1700s.

                My Facebook friend and fellow author and artist, Pamela Allegretto-Franz posted an interesting bit of trivia today that got me to thinking about my last name. She tells us that when entering ports of entry to America, that immigrant last names were/are sometimes altered or replaced completely. (Recall the famous scene in the “Godfather.”) For instance, her ancestor’s surname was actually Allegretti, changed to Allegretto at Ellis Island. She also indicated that if a person’s name was perhaps, “Bianco,” it might be changed to the English definition of the word, which is “White.”

                Well, I immediately asked Google to find for me the Gaelic word for “green.” Three possibilities came up: glas; uaine (oo-ie-ya); and gorm. Actually, gorm is oftener associated with “blue.” Might my ancestor’s real name have been Stephen Glas, or Stephen Uaine, or Stephen Gorm? I will put my bloodhound sister, Sherri on that case.

                My greenest green painting is titled, “Guardians and Other Angels,” after the title of my novel. Signed prints of my artwork are available for purchase by contacting me on Facebook’s Instant Messenger or at llgreene13@yahoo.com. My books can be purchased in eBook and soft cover at Amazon.com.