Template:Jewish Personal Name Changes

Jewish Personal Name Changes

For some Jewish researchers, the greatest challenge is that first and/or last names of their ancestors changed between the Old World and the New World.

Common lore is that the change was made at the port of entry, but in New York City and other passenger lists persons are generally identified in the same way as their Old World traveling documents. For example "Rebecca White" in New York may be "Rivka Weiss" or even "Beila Weiß" on the passenger lists and in Old World records.

For more background, read the FamilySearch Wiki article Jewish Names Personal by clicking here.

• Headstones are often inscribed with both the original Jewish names and the names used in the United States.
• Multiple given and surname spelling changes are possible during an individual's lifetime.
• When searching for a family in a census or on a passenger list, look for the family overall (birth order of boys and girls, relative ages, occupation) as much as the actual recorded names.

Given Name Changes

• Explore the JewishGen.org given names databases by clicking here.
• Ancestry.com also has an excellent database for Jewish given names. Read also the Jewish Given Name Variations article on lower part of the search page.
  • With an Ancestry.com membership, click here.
  • From the FamilySearch Library, a FamilySearch Center, or other participating institution, click here.

Surname Changes

• To understand the scope of the surname challenge, read the Wikipedia.org article Cohen (and its variations) as a surname by clicking here.
• Immigrants from foreign countries were often faced with the following choices:
  • Change European special characters (diacritics) and letter combinations to approximate English equivalents [e.g., Weiß to Weiss].
  • Retain the original spelling, but have the name mispronounced.
  • Change the spelling to retain the pronunciation.
  • Translate the last name to English [e.g., Weiß to White, Zimmermann to Carpenter, Schwartz to Black].
  • Change the name to make it less foreign-sounding [e.g. Meier to Myer, Leo Kochanski to Hans Leon].
• To find possible alternative spellings, try searching the JewishGen.org Family Finder database by clicking here. Use the spellings you already have with the "sounds like" or "starts with" options. This may yield suggestions for alternate spellings.
• Find additional information in these books available at the reference desk in the FamilySearch Library:
  • A Dictionary of German-Jewish Surnames by Lars Menk.
  • A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland, by Alexander Beider.
  • A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire, by Alexander Beider.
  • Finding Our Fathers, A Guidebook to Jewish Genealogy, by Dan Rottenberg, Section: Alphabetical List of Family Names, starting on page 149.