Official Names and Nicknames
Turning to the next great source from which have been derived the Jewish and German-Jewish surnames used in ordinary nomenclature—trades and occupations—such names as Kaufmann and Marchant ("merchant") become prominent. Others of the same kind are: Banks (Surname); Brauer, Breyer, and Brower ("brewer"); Spielmann ("player"); Gerber (tanner); Steinschneider ("stonecutter"); Graveur ("engraver"); Shoemark or Schumacher ("shoemaker"); Schuster ("cobbler"); Schneider, Schneiders, and Snyders ("tailor"; in Hebrew Ḥayyat; hence Chayet and at times Hyatt); Wechsler ("money-changer"). Related (and likewise generically German) are names derived metonymically for a common object or tool of a profession: e.g., Hammer for a blacksmith, Feder ("quill") for a scribe, Lein ("linen") for a dealer in cloth, ...
But there are others that are more distinctively Jewish: Parnass, Gabbay, Singer, Cantor, Voorsanger, Chazan, Cantarini, from the synagogue officials who were so called; Shochet, Schaechter, Schechter, from the ritual slaughterer; Shadkun, a marriage-broker; Moreno, Rabe, Rabinowitz, Rabinovich, Rabinowicz, and Rabbinovitz, rabbis; Benmohel (one variant of which is Mahler), son of one who performed circumcision, the sacred rite of Abraham. A number of Arabic names are of similar origin: Al-Fakhkhar, a potter; Mocatta, a mason or possibly a soldier (Al-Muḳatil).
Read more about this topic: Jewish Surname
Famous quotes containing the words official and/or names:
“There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy but to one there is no exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“Without infringing on the liberty we so much boast, might we not ask our professional Mayor to call upon the smokers, have them register their names in each ward, and then appoint certain thoroughfares in the city for their use, that those who feel no need of this envelopment of curling vapor, to insure protection may be relieved from a nuisance as disgusting to the olfactories as it is prejudicial to the lungs.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)