My great grandfather, Pasquale Bertone, and his wife Marie Antoinette came over to America in the late 1800's and settled in Brooklyn (kings county) New York. They had several children, one of which is my grandfather, Anthony. Somewhere between 1920 & 1930 the last name changes from Bertone to Berton. I've heard 2 different stories regarding the change. 1 is that their grocery store in Brooklyn was getting vandalized, being that Italins weren't very welcome here at the turn of the century, so they closed it, and reopened in a new location under the name Berton. Another story is that one of the children was trying to get into the banking business, and again people with vowels at the end of their name weren't necessarily allowed these types of jobs, so the family dropped the vowel. Whatever the case, in the 1920 census they're all listed as Bertone. In the 1930 census, they're listed as Berton.
I was always told that my family came from Salerno Italy.