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
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