Jewish Surname - Toponyms (names Derived From Locations)

Toponyms (names Derived From Locations)

Toponyms form, perhaps, the larger number of surnames among modern Jews. Besides general names like Deutsch, Frank, Franco, Frankel, almost every European country has contributed its quota.

The Netherlands has contributed Leuwarden, Neumegen, Limburg, van Thal, and various other vans, as van Ryn, (Rhine), etc.

Germany has contributed the largest number. Besides such well-known cities as Posen (hence Posener), Berlin (hence Berliner and Berlinsky), Bingen, Cassel (cf.David Cassel), Treves (whence, according to some authorities, originated the very popular Alsatian name of Dreyfus), Dresden, Fulda (hence Foulde), and Oppenheim, less familiar towns, like Auerbach, Bischoffsheim, Flatow (hence Flathow, and Flath), Hildesheim (Hildesheimer), Landshuth, Sulzberg, have contributed their share.

To the signs of the Frankfurter Judengasse are due the names of some of the best known of Jewish families: Rothschild ("red shield"), Schwarzschild ("black shield"), Adler ("eagle"), Ganz or Gans ("goose"), Strauss ("ostrich"), and Ochs ("ox").

A certain number of names which might at first sight seem to be derived artificially are sometimes names of towns after which they were taken, like Birnbaum (translated into "Peartree"), Rosenberg, Sommerfeld, Grünberg (hence Greenberg (surname)), Goldberg, and Rubenstein.

The English Crawcour (cf. Siegfried Kracauer) comes from Cracow, while Van Praag(h) is the name of a Prague family that settled in the Netherlands before going over to England. The name Lovin or Loving is derived from Lovington of which originated from areas near Poland. The name Gordon may in some cases be derived from the Russian Grodno but is also said to have been adopted by Jews in the Russian Empire in honor of Lord George Gordon (1751–1793), a Scottish nobleman who converted to Judaism in 1787 in Birmingham. From Poland have come names such as Polano, Pollock, Polack, Polak, Pollak, Poole, Pool, and Polk. Sephardic surnames, as already mentioned, are almost invariably local, as Almanzi, Castro, Carvajal, Leon, Navarro, Somogyi, Robles, Sevilla (Spanish), and Almeida, Carvallo, Lisbona, Miranda, Paiva, Porto, Pieba and Verdugo (Portuguese). Many Italian names are also of this class, as Alatino, Genovese (from Genoa), Meldola, Montefiore, Mortara, Pisa, Rizzolo, Romanelli (with its variants Romanin, Romain, Romayne, and Romanel), Vitalis (from Jaim or Chaim and its variants Vidal, Vidale and Vidas); Verdugo and its variants Berdugo, Bardogo, Paradiso an anagram for the word Diaspora (dispersion). Even in the East there are names of these last two classes, Behar (from Bejar), Barron (from BarOn), Galante, Veneziani, though there are a few Arabic names like Alfandari and Ḥaggis; Greek, as Galipapa and Pappo; and a few Turkish, as Jamila, Gungur, Bilbil, and Sabad.

Going still farther east, the curious custom which prevails among the Bene Israel may be mentioned of changing Biblical names to similar Hindu names with the addition of -jee, thus Benjamin into Benmajee, Abraham into Abrajee, David into Dawoodjee, Jacob into Akkoobjee. Before dismissing the local names, the names Altschul or Altschuler, derived from the Altschul ("old school/synagogue") of Prague, should be mentioned.