What was Frederick Trump’s birth name and when did he change it?
Executive summary
Frederick Trump was born in Kallstadt, Bavaria, as Friedrich Trump (German: Friedrich) on March 14, 1869, and he is widely recorded in secondary sources as having anglicized his given name to "Frederick" after emigrating to the United States; some reports say this occurred around his naturalization in 1892, while other reporting stresses that the surname's earlier forms (like "Drumpf" or "Trumpf") predate him and that it is unclear whether he formally legally changed the family surname [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Birth name and origin: the documented record
Primary genealogical and biographical summaries uniformly list his birth name as Friedrich Trump and place his birth in Kallstadt, Germany, on March 14, 1869, presenting the German spelling and pronunciation alongside the Anglicized version later used in the United States [1] [2].
2. First name anglicized: when and how that happened
Several family histories and immigration accounts state that Friedrich adopted the English form "Frederick" after he emigrated to America and as he integrated into U.S. life; one family-tree style source specifically links the change of his first name to his naturalization as a U.S. citizen in 1892, describing the move as a conventional anglicization common among immigrants of that era [3] [5].
3. Surname variations and the ‘Drumpf’ narrative: contested timing
The family surname appears in historical records with variant spellings over centuries — scholars and local Kallstadt sources note forms such as "Drumpf" or "Trumpf" in older records — but authoritative summaries caution that the spelling "Trump" had already been in use well before Friedrich's lifetime and that the precise moment the family settled on "Trump" is disputed [1] [6].
4. Did Frederick himself change the surname officially? The evidence is ambiguous
Fact‑checking outlets and historians have pointed out that while Friedrich began using "Frederick Trump" in America, documentary evidence does not definitively show a formal legal surname change executed by him; some accounts assert he "started calling himself" Frederick Trump and that later records list variations, but Snopes and other reviews conclude that the timing and legal status of any surname alteration remain unclear [4] [7].
5. Why the ambiguity matters: assimilation, mythmaking and modern political use
The story of "Drumpf" versus "Trump" has been amplified in political commentary and viral media as shorthand for immigrant assimilation or family reinvention, and sources vary in emphasis — local German associations, biographies, tabloids and fact-checkers each bring different agendas and evidentiary standards — so the scholarly consensus is to separate the well-documented personal anglicization of Friedrich→Frederick (circa his U.S. residence and citizenship) from the murkier question of when the ancestral surname spelling permanently settled on "Trump" [1] [4] [8].
6. Bottom line
Documented records and mainstream biographies agree Friedrich Trump was his birth name and that he used the Anglicized "Frederick" in the United States, likely taking that form in the years around his naturalization and during his immigration and business career; however, whether he formally and legally changed the family surname from older variants (Drumpf/Trumpf) to "Trump" during his lifetime is not definitively proven in the cited reporting and remains contested among sources [3] [4] [1].