Why are foreign city names changed from the original spelling to an American spelling.

Example: Roma to Rome; Milano to Milan; Napoli to Naples.

how about pronunciation:

melbourne to melborrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrne??

Why are foreign city names changed from the original spelling to an American spelling.

By "American spelling" I am going to assume you mean "English spelling." I have an atlas that lists national capitals, and other prominent cities, in official language of the country first, with English second. I'm grateful that I can say "Warsaw", without having to try "Warszawa" It seems to me that translating, or at least transliterating, place names into one's own language makes sense, as
otherwise we would all be forced to struggle with hundreds of different languages. Try "Jerusalem" in Hebrew, or Arabic, and Bangkok in Thai. For that matter matter try "Whanganui a Tara" and see if you don't prefer "Wellington." Even in languages that I do have some familiarity with, like German, it still seems easier, and less pretentious, to say "Nuremberg" rather than "Nürnberg", or "Munich" rather than "München." I'm reasonably sure that all languages would do the same. It would be interesting to hear "Washington DC" in Basque for example.

Maxine, good to have you aBoard!
My guess would be that the spelling was changed to try and
match the English pronunciation.
A Jewish lady I used to work with told me that U.S. Immigration officials years ago (possibly during/after WWII)
had so much difficulty with the Polish, etc., Jewish names, that they began arbitrarily assigning names that were more understandable to them. That's why we have a large number
of Goldsteins, Goldblums, Goldbergs, etc.

In Swiss Intercity trains, station names are usually announced in the 3 national languages plus English. Even though nowadays, the announcements are recordings by a professional speaker, some place names (e.g. Spiez) stubbornly resist "translation". On the other hand, Basel used to be Basle in English, Bâle in French, Basilea in Italian, until officialdom decided on a radical simplification (there was no popular vote): everybody has to say Basel now.

officialdom decided on a radical simplification (there was no popular vote): everybody has to say Basel now.

A case of "Deutsch über alles" - vielleicht?

> had so much difficulty with the Polish, etc., Jewish names, that they began arbitrarily assigning names that were more understandable to them.

This is true, and in addition, I was told by an aquaintance of mine, Peter Katzenellenbogen, that his name stemmed from an emigrant ancestor who was a political refugee, wishing to hide his identity. The immigration officials on Ellis Island were, apparently, not aware that they were admitting Mr Cat's-elbow.

Incidently, an academic friend of mine claims that it is his (my friend's) ambition to find someone called Ossenfeffer - he already knows a couple who share the name of Gilly. His intention is to get all four to publish jointly.

>A Jewish lady I used to work with told me that U.S. Immigration officials years ago (possibly during/after WWII) had so much difficulty with the Polish, etc., Jewish names, that they began arbitrarily assigning names that were more understandable to them. That's why we have a large number of Goldsteins, Goldblums, Goldbergs, etc.

It actually went quite a bit farther than that. My father went to work in Minneapolis-St. Paul as a cub reporter somewhere around 75 years ago. A naturally curious fellow, as are all reporters, he began to walk around the area (during the spring and summer, of course, NO one walks around there in the winter!) He soon noticed a sign that read "Olaf Olafsen's chinese Laundry." Wondering if there was a story there, the Old Feller went in and asked for Olaf. The ancient Chinese man running the place volunteered that his name was Olaf Olafsen.

"How," asked my father, "did you come up with that name."

"I always wondered," said the Chinese guy. "I got off the boat in Detroit and at the immigration desk there was a huge blond man in front of me. He told the immigration people his name was Olaf Olafsen. The man behind the desk finished with the blond man then asked me what my name was. I told him, 'Sam Ting.'"