MovieChat Forums > An American Tail (1986) Discussion > Tanya's name change

Tanya's name change

posted 16 years ago by Coolguy-7
4 replies | jump to latest

When the Mousekewitz family arrives in America, Tanya's name is changed to Tilly. Why? It's not like Tanya is hard to pronounce.

[–] elgrandTA82 15 years ago

It was actually suppose to be explained, but it ended up being the cut of the film. But in terms of the film as it is now, it works so that Tanya can make the connection bet. Filly and Fievel.

[–] chime1985 10 years ago

It was actually suppose to be explained, but it ended up being the cut of the film. But in terms of the film as it is now, it works so that Tanya can make the connection bet. Filly and Fievel.

I heard there was an extra scene explaining that to. There is however a semi-explanation when they reach America and are at the immigration check-in with the humans. You can here a human conversation in the background:

Officer: Name?
Immigrant: Bolchovik (sp)
Officer: Okay...Mr. "Smith". Welcome to America

[–] elgrandTA82 10 years ago

Yeah one of the issues they had was that the time they had for production ended up being cut down. As a result many plot elements and story points had to be cut from the film and shorter ones had to created in order to get Fievel from point a to point b. The part with the name was likely one such shorter scene since they had to drop the scene with the full explanation.

[–] matt-n273 15 years ago

It's all about American Nationalism. People are bound to rally together during stressful times, such as war, when they don't have to think about whether the last name of the man next to them is German, or Russian, or Austrian, or Japanese, or Korean, or Chinese. Of course, the practice is long outdated and isn't used any more, but it was usually never to make a name easier. Just to make it more "normal". Like switching the name Johanason to Johnson. Johanason looks odd, different. And at a time when fear of war with Europe was growing people wanted Johnson, not Johanason.