What’s in a Name?

Madeline Webb during a recess in her New York murder trial in 1942.

But for the vagaries of life, the true crime book I’m writing with co-author M.J. Van Deventer could bear the title ‘Nettie Gets Life.’

Madeline Webb was known as Nettie during her early years. She was named after her maternal grandmother, Nettie Glass.

The younger Nettie didn’t like the name, which is short for Finetta, so she used her middle name, and the working title for the book is ‘Madeline Gets Life.’

Other true-life characters in the book experience name changes, even the victim, a wealthy refugee from Poland. Newspapers called her Susan Flora Reich when her body was found at the Hotel Sutton in New York City in March 1942.

When she was born to a Polish industrialist in the late 1800s, she was Zuzanna. Her family split their time between Lwow and Vienna, so some documents called her by the German Susanne instead.

Once she arrived in New York in 1939, she adopted the diminutive Susie.

Her husband came with her to the United States. Back home, he was Marjan Reich. He went by Marion in his new country.

Susie Reich’s mother and aunt joined her in New York. The mother was Berta Kolischer, sometimes rendered as Bertha. The aunt was Eliza Ewelina Klärmann, and she played an important role in Madeline’s murder trial – identifying Madeline as the person who phoned to invite Susie Reich to the Hotel Sutton.

In America, the first thing to go was the ‘a’ with the German umlaut: ä.

That changed the pronunciation from ‘Clair’ to ‘Klahr-mahn.’

Next to go was the second ‘n’ in her last name. On her application for citizenship, she had the clerk type it Klarman, though her signature stubbornly keeps the ä and the double-n.

She died in 1947 and is buried in the same plot as Berta and Susie. Note the stone names her Klarman.

If you look closely, you can see a smaller stone that renders Susie’s name as ‘Susanna’ — yet another alteration.