Very Easy Question

[CobraDemon]

Hey guys, just a quick bio. My great gradparents came here to America from Finland, and growing up my Grandfather was very, very proud of the language and the heritage and I wish I could have learned more so that I could have maybe talked with him in Finnish a time or two before he passed on. Recently I was thinking that I'd like to get a tattoo of my last name in Finnish as sort of a tribute to him. If someone could translate how you would write my last name from English, to Finnish, I would greatly appreciate it. My last name is Simmons. Thank you very much!

[onkko]

Easy, your last name is Simmons in finnish.

[AldenG]

People didn't translate their names when they moved to America, they simply changed them. Well, sometimes translation may have come into the picture (not necessarily of the whole name) but mostly it was shortening or changing to something that sounded similar.

Mäki or Mäkinen might become Hill. Stein might become Stone. But just as often, or more often, Rantanen became Grant or Rand, Hiltunen became Hill, Järvinen became Jarvis, or anything hard to pronounce became Finn.

So you'd have to find family records to work out his Finnish name.

You could do the opposite and convert Simmons to Simonen. It's not a translation, it's just an approximation. Who knows, maybe that was your ancestral name. But I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

[Rip]

Mäki or Mäkinen might become Hill. Stein might become Stone. But just as often, or more often, Rantanen became Grant or Rand, Hiltunen became Hill, Järvinen became Jarvis, or anything hard to pronounce became Finn.

In the older times, I understand this approximation service was provided by the immigration authorities. They asked (verbally) an immigrant his name, if he understood the question he gave it (might have of course not understood and said something else or mixed first and family names) and then the one on the other side of the desk wrote down what he thought he had heard and a new American family name was born.

Other things to consider: Earlier even Finnish speaking people had Swedish family names, most of them were changed to Finnish ones during later 19th and early 20th century. Until 19th century many of the poorer (= ordinary) people did not have family name (legally that was possible even up to 1921)

[kalmisto]

There are quite a few Americans whose surname is Finland but no-one ( that I know of ) living in Finland has that surname. There are of course indigenous Finns whose surname is "Suomi" or "Suomalainen" but not "Finland":

You can use this online phonebook to find people in the US whose surname is "Finland" :
http://tinyurl.com/6vxnko

There are surprisingly many of them.

[Pursuivant]

Recently I was thinking that I'd like to get a tattoo of my last name in Finnish as sort of a tribute to him. If someone could translate how you would write my last name from English, to Finnish, I would greatly appreciate it. My last name is Simmons.

In your case the tattoo reads:
Faijani olisi pitänyt siementää sulkijalihaksen taa.