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Archiver > HUNGARY > 1999-02 > 0917898691


From: "Felix G. Game" <>
Subject: [HUNGARY-L] Benci v/s Bencze
Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 14:51:31 -0500


>Subject: [HUNGARY-L] BENCZE or BENCI
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>Could anyone tell me if the surname BENCZE could logically have become
>BENCI in the USA, or is BENCI Hungarian? In Ohio records I found the name
>as BENCI in 1917, as BENCAR in 1918, then BENCE in 1922, and finally BENSON
>in the 1950's. This was her maiden name and I found it on her children's
>birth (& death) certificates along with her husband's name, so I know it is
>the same person.

This is in addition to, and not in disagreement with Joseph Nemet sentence
below:

>There are no Benci listed in the Hungarian phone book, but there are 1413
Bencze
>and 254 Bence listed. Make your own deductions from this.

Before seeing Joseph's name count, I was going to give this reply: The "i"
sound in Hungarian would automatically elicit the "e" spelling from an
English-speaking person. That should take care of the "e" ending instead of
the "i" ending. It is significant that the earliest spelling had the "i"
ending, and I feel confident that the original Hungarian spelling had the
"i" ending. Now to the "c" v/s the "cz": In my experience, the "cz" is an
older spelling which may have had to do with the Monarchy's
multi-culturalism. Several of the ethnic entities inside the Monarchy
pronounced the letter "c" totally differently from each other, and the
bureaucracy, which was using German as the official language, used some, or
required some indications of how to pronounce names. The "cz" seems to have
satisfied this need, and in 19th century Hungarian documents we frequently
find the "cz" - even in given names like Ferenc (as Ferencz), Vencel (as
Venczel). The other thing that must be remembered is that many Hungarians
had a German ancestry, and that the "cz" was a natural result of dropping
the German "tz" for the sake of magyarization.

Coming back to Joseph: he had me all worried about the response I was
going to give, and I checked my hard copy Budapest telephone directory (Bp
is very representative of the rest of Hungary), and found that he was
absolutely correct: there are tons of Bencze, and no
Benci. Because I could not believe this, I had a long, and careful look,
and found that there were 8 listings for the name Benczi. Sticking with my
earlier analysis, I would say that 100 years ago there were probably plenty
of Benczi around, but most would have modernized the spelling of their name
to the current Hungarian spelling of Benci. Whatever happens to their name
when emigrating to a different culture is anyone's guess.

Joseph, I hope you don't mind this little embellishment of your otherwise
correct answer.

<felix>

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