Satmar (Hasidic Dynasty) - Name

Name

The original Hungarian name of the town of origin was Szatmár. The name appeared at first in a document written in 1213 in the form "Zotmar". Originally it was derived from a personal name. The Romanian name was first Sǎtmar, differing only in orthography from the Hungarian one, but in 1925 was officially changed to Satu Mare. That version means "large village", with the Romanian Satu ("village") deriving from the Latin fossatum, while Mare means "large" in Romanian.

There is a well known folk etymology, repeated both among members of Satmar itself and in outside literature about the group, that Satu Mare actually meant "Saint Mary." Many Hasidim, occasionally including Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum himself, referred to the town as "Sakmar" to avoid use of its allegedly "pagan" name. The folk story notwithstanding, the vast majority of Hasidim now use the original Hungarian name "Satmar".