How did Jews get surnames?
Ask the rabbi.
Rabbi Raymond Apple
SURNAMES
Q. How did Jews get surnames?
A. The Austria/Hungarian emperor made Jews have surnames. The names often chose themselves by being distinctively Jewish, e.g. Cohen, Levi, Levin, Israel, Rabbinovitch, Kantor, Shechter, Shammash and Katz (from “Kohen Tzedek”, righteous priest) or linked with lineage, e.g. Jacobs, Isaacs, Abrahams, Solomon, Hyamson, Mirkin (from Miriam). There were abbreviations such as Bard (“Ben Rabbi David”) or Brasch (“Ben Rabbi Shimon”).
Some names came from places (Moskovitch, Wiener, Berlin, Brody, Katzenelenbogen), occupations (Schneider, Schuster, Becker, Lehrer, Drucker), animals (Adler, Baer, Wolf, Fox), appearance (Gross, Klein, Hochstein, Unterman), or wealth (Reich, Gold, Silber, Diamant). Some names reflected colours (Schwarz, Weiss, Green, Gelb).
Before houses had numbers they often bore signs which became the residents’ surnames (Rothschild, red shield; Kahn, a boat; Vogel, a bird; Baum, a tree).
Gentile authorities gave nice names for a large bribe (Roseman, Lilienthal) or offensive names for a poor bribe (Eiselkopf, donkey-head; Spielvogel, gambler; Gans, goose; Froschwaig, frog’s spawn).
THE MONTH OF WAITING
Ellul – the month that begins this Shabbat – is the lead-up to the High Holydays.
Each day until Sh’mini Atzeret we add Psalm 27 to the service. We greet people with words that evoke the rarefied atmosphere of the festive season.
Whatever we can do or say during Ellul has a tinge of the Days of Awe. The closer we get to the end of the month, the more our spirits are aroused. Ellul is the month of waiting, knowing that any day now we will reach the year’s peak.
The imminence of the new year moves us and excites us. Indeed the whole of Judaism is a spiritual waiting room, though it isn’t a train we are waiting for. We are waiting for history to reach its culmination in the coming of Mashi’ach, when the world will be (as Alenu says) “perfected under the Kingdom of the Almighty”.
Rabbi Raymond Apple served for 32 years as the chief minister of the Great Synagogue, Sydney, Australia’s oldest and most prestigious congregation. He is now retired and lives in Jerusalem where he answers interesting questions.
It wasn’t just Jews who received these strange / derogatory names – a couple that spring to mind are Ramsbottom and Winterbottom – the latter name was stamped on electric heating equipment – the firm had a business in Clarence St Sydney.