Here's The Fascinating Origin Of Almost Every Jewish Last Name

[elleng]

Ashkenazic Jews were among the last Europeans to take family names. Some German-speaking Jews took last names as early as the 17th century, but the overwhelming majority of Jews lived in Eastern Europe and did not take last names until compelled to do so. The process began in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1787 and ended in Czarist Russia in 1844.

In attempting to build modern nation-states, the authorities insisted that Jews take last names so that they could be taxed, drafted, and educated (in that order of importance). For centuries, Jewish communal leaders were responsible for collecting taxes from the Jewish population on behalf of the government, and in some cases were responsible for filling draft quotas. Education was traditionally an internal Jewish affair.

Until this period, Jewish names generally changed with every generation. For example, if Moses son of Mendel (Moyshe ben Mendel) married Sarah daughter of Rebecca (Sara bat rivka), and they had a boy and named it Samuel (Shmuel), the child would be called Shmuel ben Moyshe. If they had a girl and named her Feygele, she would be called Feygele bas Sora.

Jews distrusted the authorities and resisted the new requirement. Although they were forced to take last names, at first they were used only for official purposes. Among themselves, they kept their traditional names. Over time, Jews accepted the new last names, which were essential as Jews sought to advance within the broader society and as the shtetles were transformed or Jews left them for big cities.

http://www.businessinsider.com/origins-of-popular-jewish-surnames-2014-1

[NYC_SKP]

1. I've never seen that!

Fascinating, and pretty comprehensive!

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Fascinating.

Thanks for posting that.

Is that naming related to Arab naming?

[Mosby]

3. american Jews still use hebrew names

In addition to their english names and those are similarly arranged like muslim names, so and so son of....

[MADem]

4. I am astounded (though I shouldn't be) at how many Jewish cultural traditions are also

found in Islam.

Even the whole kosher-halal thing is similar...and if you look at a lot of the food, many, many recipes are indistinguishable.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. That is very telling, indeed.

I have always figured that Mohammad and Jesus were based on the same person, and many of the religious stories are found both in Bible and Koran, as are many of proscriptions.
The flood being a significant similarity.

[aquart]

8. Uh...

I don't know where to start. Maybe with...CHECK THE DATES!

[MADem]

11. Some people don't realize that in Islam, Moses (Musa) and Jesus (Isa) are regarded as

prophets--they're just not "The Big Cheese."

Way back before the religions fought about everything (and of course well after that dust-up some called The Crusades), Jews and Christians were considered by Muslims to be People of The Book and were granted accommodations and courtesies in Muslim lands, as all worshipped the God of Ibrahim (Abraham).

It's not such a collegial attitude nowadays, pity.

[MosheFeingold]

23. Nope

The Nazarene and Mohammed were both real people, separated by several centuries.

Both reasonably well-documented outside their belief systems, Mohammed more so, principally because he was a rather renown warlord and left many, many descendants (including John Kerry and George Bush, ironically).

The flood is in all three religions because the Koran cites (and relies upon) both the "new" testament and the Torah, and the "new" testament cites (and relies upon) the Torah.

[aquart]

10. And Finland.

[elleng]

12. Kosher IS Halal, in Islam,

says my close Muslim friend. Had lunch at a Halal Indian/Pakistani restaurant, where we eat often.

[MADem]

15. Depends on which crew you are dealing with.

Halal is not kosher, so the courtesy is not returned, but kosher will substitute for halal in a pinch.

[MosheFeingold]

24. "Kosher IS Halal"

Generally speaking, this is often true, at least in practice, but it's like a Vehn diagram (remember those from 8th grade?).

Kosher is Halal, but Halal is not not necessarily Kosher. Some imans differ, but the disagreement is largely an anti-Semitic thing, not a religious thing (although the two do often overlap).

Interestingly, while Christians have limited dietary restrictions (the remaining stemming back to Noahdic laws --- don't drink blood,* don't eat a living animal), they are also optionally cautioned against eating meat "sacrificed to idols."

This restriction on eating meat "sacrificed to idols" had to do with Roman times and not participating/condoning various Roman pagan rituals. They could eat meat sacrificed to idols, if they had to, in that they recognized the rituals were meaningless and did not really effect the meat, but eating such meat was seen as possibly condoning the Roman rituals, and, if that was the case, to not eat such meat, in that eating it could lead others astray. (It also had the practical effect of putting money into the pockets of the Romans, in that you bought the meat from them.)

Anyway, Halal slaughter requires some sort of dedication of the animal to "Allah" as part of the slaughter process.

Some middle eastern Christians have decided that "Allah" is not the G-d of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, but rather a false "god," and thus Halal meat is "meat sacrificed to idols" and thus to be avoided, in that eating such meat would be condoning Islam/putting money into the pockets of people who wish to kill you.

I think it probably has more to do with the fact that Muslims have been unusually harsh on Christians in the ME for the last 50 years or so than theology, but it is what it is.

They don't have similar problems with Kosher meat, in that they view us Jewish folk as "correct, but incomplete," as a Christian Arab friend told me one time.

Anyway, not totally related, and other people's food practices are none of my business (and I certainly can't throw stones, since I keep Kosher, which is "weird" to most) but I've seen this come up a couple of times.

* One of the origins of the vampire myth, BTW. Historically, in Judaism (and thence Christianity) blood of animals was forbidden for various sanitary reasons, but also because blood what thought to contain the essence of the animal, which transferred into the person eating it. Also related to Christian Communion, but in the inverse, in that that is supposedly a "good" soul.

[elleng]

25. Thanks. Interesting

(and confounding to this non-practicing and NON-KOSHER Jew.) Just returned from lunch at a little Halal Pakistani, restaurant!

An African tribe about whom I learned recently uses the blood of slaughtered animals as a/the
main feature of their diet. (Will try to recall the name.)

[question everything]

16. And circumcision (nt)

[MADem]

17. Absolutely--and that one is a real surprise to some folks!

If you are an infidel and want to marry that Muslim girl, the Imam WILL check...and there's a guy in the masjid with a bunch of ornate ritual knives...just in case!

[aquart]

20. Robert Graves would probably be really helpful here.

Graves understood that when a new religion takes over it demonizes the old. (It also rewrites the festivals people refuse to give up. Like the thesmaphoria.) Now take a look at Satan's piggy feet and ask yourself "Did I once like him a whole lot more than I do now?"

Because forbidden food is sacred food. How old are our dietary laws? Older than El? Yahweh?

[MADem]

21. Well, unrelated to that...but kind of....in terms of "rewriting" anyway...

You know how in Europe they have this Black guy (it's a rather racist and offensive representation) who follows Santa/Father Christmas around? He's popular in the Netherlands to this day, though people are finally starting to say "WTF" about him.

They have a similar guy who is a fixture of Nowruz in Persian celebration. He's still popular--no pushback on him, yet.

I often wondered if there was some nexus there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajji_Firuz

[aquart]

22. Well, the spit tests are debunking racial "purity" right and left.

People got around a lot more than we thought in the millennia before Motel 6.

[Shoonra]

6. I suspect a small error

I think this article errs in saying that the daughters' names connected with the mothers' name.
Instead of Sarah bat Rivka, the girl would be known with a patronymic: Sarah bat Moyshe.

BUT, an unusual practice: When a person was very sick and the congregation prayed for his or her recovery - THEN the mother's name was used. Moyshe ben Mendel would be identified in this prayer by his mother's name: Moyshe ben Miriam. This peculiarity, used only for prayers for sick people, was supposedly justified by Psalm 116:16. However my own opinion is that it was simple strategy to impede the Angel of Death; virtually every member of that congregation knew not only the other members but also knew (at least knew the names of) both parents of every member. To the members of the congregation naming someone by his matronymic was just as effective an identifier as the usual patronymic, but the Angel of Death, snooping around for an easy target, was a mere stranger and would be baffled by the use the matronymic and it would not help him to find a weakened victim.

[littlemissmartypants]

7. Kicking. Thank you. nt

[aquart]

9. So my father told me a story...

The name assigner came to my father's ancestor and said he was assigning a ludicrous last name to him for being such a hotheaded troublemaker. My ancestor was milking a cow. He picked up a quart measure and threw it at the name assigner. So we got our name.

The thing is, Jews in Spain had heraldic shields. They had family names. And Cohens knew they were Cohens everywhere. So something is incomplete here.

[elleng]

13. So tell us the milking cow/throwing quart measure name, Moyshe!!!

[aquart]

19. I use my name here.

It helps regulate my temper which is fairly ancestral. Do I have doubts about the narrative Grandpa Max passed to his son? HAH!

[Dr. Xavier]

14. I know that this deals with the Ashkenzic Jews but

what about us Conversos? Both my families were Sephardim from Spain and were forced to the New World because we weren't trusted. My surname and my mother's maiden name are both small towns in Spain, not your more popular Spanish surnames. So even though my families have been Catholic for 600 hundred years, we're still Jewish. I didn't know this until after my father had passed away and I sometimes wonder if he knew. He was a WWII veteran, having served in Patton's Third Army. The Third Army liberated Mauthausen Concentration Camp in May 1945. I wonder what he was thinking at the time. He never talked about it. Family history can be a trip.

[aquart]

18. I heard Spain was thinking of asking us back.

Us. If my cousin Barry won't spit for 23andMe, I'll never know for sure. Spit, Barry! Spit!

I thought we were Ashkenazic except for that Asian DNA (which was a scandalous story not to mention they had 16 kids) and Grandma Annie who was Sephardic, don't ask, we know nothing. But if Grandpa Max came out of Spain, too, then I have no clue what we were doing for the last few thousand years. Aside from being regularly murdered. Just no clue.

Not making money, I think.

[MosheFeingold]

26. Little Trivia, but relevant here

I used to volunteer for a lot of Jewish groups and, as a lawyer, would get stuck with mailing things because I had a staff/secretary.

Anyway, I've seen a lot of mailing lists for huge Jewish organizations, some with 100,000 or more names.

Guess what the most common Jewish surname is, without fail, in the USA?

.
.
.
.

The very goyishe "Smith" (and all its variations -- Smit, Schmidt, etc.), same as among gentiles, and perhaps more so.

Some of this, I think, has to do with European Jews not owning real property and having to take up trades. Also why "Miller" and "Sandler" and "Cooper" are pretty common Jewish names.