Jewish Naming Customs: Difference between revisions

In many cases, restrictions were placed on the choice of names. Some governments forbade the adoption of Christian-sounding names or names of famous families. French laws forbade Jews taking names based on localities or to adopt Old Testament names. Hebrew names were generally not allowed. Since Jews considered Hebrew names sacred, a Yiddish, German, or Polish version that often had a symbolic association was generally used. Many used diminutive forms of these names according to dialect. For example, the name Jacob has the variations: Jankel, Yekel, Yakof, Yakobl, Kopel, Kopelman, and Kofman. These variant given names provided a rich source for surnames derived from Hebrew names without actually being Hebrw.

Many Hebrew given names have a symbolic connection with animals. For example, the German word for deer is Hirsch or, in some dialects, Herz or Hart. Hence we find surnames such as Hirsch, Hirschsohn, Herz, Hirschberg, Hartwig, and Herschel. The Slavic version of deer [hind] is Jellinek and in French is Cerf. Jews also used given names as part of a surname. From Aaron, for example, comes the surnames Arnstein, Arndt, Ahrens, Ehrens, Ehrenstamm, Ehrlich, and Ohrenstein. A man with a wife named Perla could have taken the surname Perlmann.  

But the most common names were ones that were cleverly disguised. Often the German name chosen had a different meaning to the Jew than it did to the German official who recorded it. For example, the acronym of the Hebrew words kohen ha-tzedek [righteous priest] produced Katz (German for cat), a name acceptable to German officials. This same abbreviation of form is found in Bach [German for brook] from ben Chaim [son of Chaim].  

Family names were often derived from place-names. Place-names chosen by Ashkenazic Jews may represent a recent place of origin or may go back to some ancestral home (real or supposed) the family was expelled from in the Middle Ages. Thus we find such names as Amsterdam, Lemberger (from Lemberg, L'vov), Halpern (from Heilbronn), Dreyfus (from Trèves), and Shapiro (from Speier). Some names are less specific like Westermann (from the West), Unger (from the Hungarian county of Ung), Schlesinger (from Schlesien [Silesia]), and Hess (from Hessen [Bavaria]).  

Occupations were also a source for family names, including Schneider, Kravitz, or Portnoy [tailor], Kaufmann [shopkeeper], Schuler, Schulmann or Szkolnik [sexton, beadle], Singer [cantor], Metzger, Reznick, Schlachter, or Schochet [ritual slaughterer], and Klopman [one who knocks on the shutters to wake people for morning worship]. Many surnames reflect priestly or levitical heritage. One of the most common of all Jewish surnames is Kohen [priest] and its variations, Cohen, Kahn, Kogan, and Katz. Surnames showing Levitic or priestly heritage include Levy, Levinsky, Levin, Lewek, Lewenberg, and Segal (an abbreviation for segan leviah [member of the Levites]).  

Various government commissions often took bribes from the Jews in return for granting them pleasant-sounding surnames. Beautiful names derived from flowers and gems, such as Blumenthal [flower valley], Finkelstein [sparkling stone, diamond, pyrite], and other such names would come at a high price. Less fancy names, such as Weintraub [winegrape], Steinberg [stone mountain], Adler [eagle], or Eisen [iron], could be obtained at a lower cost. Those who could not or would not pay would sometimes receive ridiculous names, such as Ochsenschwanz [oxtail], Langnass [long nose], Zweifel [doubt], Schmalz [grease], Fresser [glutton], and other similar names.

The process of surname development continued with the emigration of Jews from Europe. In the United States many changes in surnames can be attributed to an ignorance of European languages on the part of American officials and registrars. The immigrants’ ignorance of English also contributed to the creation of numerous new surnames and variations. Changes may have been minor, such as a slight adjustment in spelling to make the name easier to pronounce, such as Wallace from Wallisch or Harris from Hirsch. Or the name may have been shortened to make it sound less Jewish or foreign, such as Rosenzweig changed to Rose or Ross. A surname may have been translated into English, such as Schneider to Taylor, or it may have been discarded and replaced with a new name altogether.  

*Lévy, Paul. ''Les Noms des Israélites en France, Histoire et Dictionnaire'' (=The Names of Jews in France, History and Dictionary). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1960. (FHL book 944 D46l.)