I have recently married into the Krpan family of Bladworth, Saskatchewan, Canada. and I would like to know if the orginal Croatian spelling of Krpan included a vowel, or are the letters "Krp" the original spelling. Are all the Kerpan's, Korpan's, and Karpan's and Krpan's from the same family lineage. Was there a name change along the way, and if so, who made it?
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My understanding of the name is that the original Croatian does not have the vowel. It was at Ellis Island (or other points of entry into the US) that vowels were added to the names in order to "Americanize" them.
My grandmother Mary Krpan Zdunich of Croatia(and now Joliet, IL) has always spelled it without the vowel.
Hope that helped?
James Burkey
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It was the same with my family. My grandfather was a Karpan, whose grandmother held the name Krpan when she came over - i'm not sure if it is from Lovinac, Sveti Rok or not. The other name that came from southern Croatia was Sikic (from Stikada)
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I think this a pretty common occurrence, especially (perhaps) in Western Nations that like everything to sound as English as possible.
The slavic languages are not so vowel-dependent - and if you think about it "Krpan" and "Kirpan" and "Kerpan" all sound exactly the same. So, some families changed spellings themselves in order to fit in better (my father's side went from Burki (with umlauts over the u) to Burkey because Americans don't use umlauts and they wanted to fit in better. The Krpan name, I believe, was changed by officials at Ellis Island who expected immigrants to be more American in their spellings of names.
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It does pretty much sound the same, but it makes the quest more difficult on us. Now i just need to track down the surname Sikic and i might actually get somewhere.
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I know there were some sikic families in Joliet, but I did not know where they were from or anything. If my mom knows anything, I will let you know (she grew up in the Croatian part of town and went to the Croat school.)
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that's great. thanks for all your help.
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I am going to Croatia this month for the first time. I typed in the name Sikic and found your e-mail. My father was born in Gracac, Croatia. He moved to the US at a very young age in the early 1900's. For some period of time he lived in Superior WYO and knew a family by the name of Krpan. I don't know if this is how they spelled it or not. The ladies name was Ann. They owned a restaurant there. I don't really know anything else about them.
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Well thanks anyways. If you find out anything more on the name Sikic, I would appreciate any assistance you might be able to offer. My grandfather's name was spelled Karpan, but his grandmother's name was spelled Krpan. Her husband;/partner was a Sikic.
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My Grandpa (John Krpan) changed his families name to Karpan when he started having kids. Why I am not sure. I've never seen the birth certificate so I can not confirm the spelling. But we have alot of family in Alberta, some in BC as well. I do know he was borm just outside of Bosnia.
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