The issue of whether "James" is an equivalent name to "Václav" has come up in discussions on this list and the other associated lists many times before. From the Czech point of view, there is no equivalent name to Václav in English. There is a tradition in the United States to substitute the name James for persons arriving with the name Václav. Anyone researching Czech names needs to be aware of it because it is rather common here (IN the US), but James is still not an equivalent given name for the Czech name of Václav. > > From: Lynn Brown <lingbro@lanset.com> > Date: 2004/05/20 Thu AM 11:33:00 CDT > To: CZECH-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: [CZ] Re: "W" > > My great grandparents immigrated from Bohemia in 1867. They named > their 1st son born in early 1869 Missouri "Wenzel". He later became > known as "William" or "Willie". The first several years in Missouri, > they spelt their Bohemian name "Bochnicek" in German "Bochnischek". > > John - I, too, have a grandparent "John Dvorak" and for the first 10 > years living in Missouri, he spelled "Dvorak" as "Deworack", then it > was changed to "Dworak", and then finally back to "Dvorak". When I > inquired through family lines why the changes in spelling, I was told > 1) when he first came here, the change was "political", wanting a > hard "ack" [D-VOR-ACK] because everyone pronouced his name as > "De-zore-sack". Later, as he learned English, it became Dvorak, and > we pronouce it with a hard "ack". [no one speaks Bohomian or Czech in > the family anymore - a shame]. > > Lynn Brown (Dvorak)