I have been working on obtaining Greek citizenship, and it has been crazy dealing with the documentation from my late grandfather who never updated anything upon moving to America. There are two ways to spell his surname depending on if the documents come from Greece or Albania (due to borders changing between countries since his birth). When he was in the process of immigrating to the US through Ellis Island, his last name was converted to Greeklish (English alphabet representing Greek characters) on all of the manifests. This resulted in a few mixed spellings. At Ellis Island they ruled his name would be too confusing for Americans, so they entirely altered the spelling to make it phonetically more pleasing to an American. Fortunately, his name was short enough where the new name sounds the same as it does in Greek. My grandfather proudly took his new name and enjoyed his new life! Many immigrants from Greece had their names shortened and completely altered. To a Greek, they are incoherent gibberish with no meaning.
Then there is the issue where women’s surnames are conjugated into a feminine ending, so women have similar but different last names than their husbands. The US didn’t like this and didn’t understand this practice for a long time. I know a few women that have dual citizenship and maintain a passport for each country with a different spelling of their last name. Updating documentation in one country to the other causes all sorts of issues with this setup (since everything requires a translation via an apostille). My friends recently got married in Greece and then separately again in the US at a courthouse to avoid all of the paperwork and translation pains from the woman’s Greek maiden name differing from her American maiden name.
Many of these issues are easier to deal with now, but they have a long history of confusion and extra effort going back more than 100 years. Safe to say, I’m relying on documentation from my other Greek grandfather where things are more straightforward for pursuing my citizenship.
Then there is the issue where women’s surnames are conjugated into a feminine ending, so women have similar but different last names than their husbands. The US didn’t like this and didn’t understand this practice for a long time. I know a few women that have dual citizenship and maintain a passport for each country with a different spelling of their last name. Updating documentation in one country to the other causes all sorts of issues with this setup (since everything requires a translation via an apostille). My friends recently got married in Greece and then separately again in the US at a courthouse to avoid all of the paperwork and translation pains from the woman’s Greek maiden name differing from her American maiden name.
Many of these issues are easier to deal with now, but they have a long history of confusion and extra effort going back more than 100 years. Safe to say, I’m relying on documentation from my other Greek grandfather where things are more straightforward for pursuing my citizenship.