The ructions that erupted when Slatkin became Zlotkin

The conductor Leonard Slatkin has written a fond memoir of his brother, the cellist Fred Zlotkin, who died suddenly at the weekend of a heart attack. Here’s an extract.

… By the mid ’60s, he realized that the name Freddie would no longer cut it, so he changed it to Fred, or more formally, Frederick. We all understood. However, the question I am most asked about him is why his last name is different than mine. Here is what Fred had to say on that subject:

The original spelling of the name, from the Russian and the Hebrew inscription on our great grandfather’s tombstone, was ZLATKIN. A Russian “a” sounds more like an American “o,” hence, Zlotkin. The name was spelled Zlotchin on the ship’s passenger record, and Zlatkine when Levik (Louis) came over in ’23. It is quite plausible that Chaim changed the name to Americanize it, to forget about the hard times they had in Russia and start anew in the U.S.

Our grandmother, when asked about the original spelling of the name, simply said, “Our lives did not begin until we came to the United States. We are Slatkin.” Interestingly, I never heard anyone from that side of the family refer to themselves as Ukrainian.

Our mother was furious! She considered this an insult to the memory of Felix. Fred did not help matters when he named his firstborn child Felix Zlotkin. Mother and son did not speak to each other for a very long time….

Read the full memoir here.