Except for aristocrats, wealthy people and well off Jewish merchants did not get surnames in Eastern Europe until the Napoleonic years of the early 19th century. Most of the Jews from countries captured by Napoleon
Russia, Poland, and Germany were ordered to get surnames.
The reason for the last names were for tax purposes. After Napoleon's defeat many Jews dropped their surnames and returned to "son of" names like MENDELSOHN, JACOBSON, LEVINSON, etc.
During the so called Emancipation, Jews were once more ordered to take on surnames. When Jews adopted family names in the 18th and 19th centuries, the choice was frequently the patronymic and first names thus became family names.
"No
matter what one's name is in any other language, all Jews can be
assured that they have only one Hebrew name: the standard form
is "first name son/daughter of father's first name.: Until the
19th century, when Jews in Eastern Europe had to take on
surnames, it was by this way that one was known. It is
standard custom to put both the Jewish date of death and the
Hebrew name of the deceased. From a posting by Howard
Zakai
Tip: When looking for names of relatives, I have found using
nicknames, and Yiddish/Hebrew names seem to help. I found
my grandmother whose name was Beckie in English, Baila in
Hebrew/Yiddish, but on the manifest was Babe which was a
nickname. This might help as it did in my case.
From a posting by Shelly Klink
"Jews in the 1800's in Eastern Europe were generally not real attached to their last names - they didn't use it among themselves. And they tried to avoid the draft in
Russia by 'fiddling around', having baby boys registered as belonging to another family which had no sons, and doing other things to make it hard for Russia. It was also not uncommon when the couple was not allowed to marry civilly that a couple would marry religiously and the babies would be considered 'illegitimate' by the government and have the Mother's surname (the Father was not her husband according to the government."
From a posting to JewishGen by Sally Bruckheimer on 4//3/02
In
Austria The Emperor Joseph made Jews take on last names in the late 1700s.
Poland in 1821 and Russia in 1844. Probably some of our families have only had last names for 175 years or less. In France and the Anglo Saxon countries surnames went back to the 16th century.
Also Sephardic Jews had surnames stretching back centuries. (Spain prior Ferdinand and Isabella was a golden spot for Jews) They were expelled by Isabella in the same year that Columbus discovered America. The earliest American Jews were Sephardic.
With Dutch Jews, it was common practice to name the children
after their parents while still alive, as opposed to the Ashkenazi.
The name of a
child is not a very efficient way of establishing whether the ancestor
was Ashkenazi or Sephardi.
Alexander Sharon, a noted genealogical authority posted the following answer to a post on 5/30/05 to a question by Marlene Bishow
"The list of the permitted name, if (one) exists, should be available through the
Austrian Archives in Vienna or the two main Galicia branches in
Lwów and/or Krakow. I personally have not come across one as yet.
Katz is a Sefardi surname (see Katz below) and it appears in the Jewish Galicia records before the introduction of Germanic names.
While Sephardi Jews have long since adopted the
Spanish practice of surnames, the Ashkenazis have been very conservative, still following the antique custom of using their first, plus father's first name, in a Hebrew -Yiddish form, Dawid ben Solomon, for example.
"==Yes, I
think it very likely that most of the Jews to the east of Germany who were surnamed variations of
Ashkenazi, were Jews who had
originated in Germany, a region known as "Ashkenaz" among Jews. I'm not
sure that initially most Jews "chose" their surnames--rather, the locals attached
surnames to families as a way of referring to a specific one, just as the names
Gross and Klein, Lang and Kurz, Schwartz and Weiss were bestowed. "
"I find
weak evidence for the name Ashkenaz and its many variants always being associated with Sephardic roots, though this may have been the
origin for some with that name. Rather there is another thread not yet
mentioned that was more likely the origin of variations of that name.
When (Ashkenazic) Jews were expelled from Poland, some went
to Italy and other places in the region. Most did not go with surnames since that
was not yet the custom in that part of Europe, but Jews in Italy and
other countries where they differentiated themselves from Ashkenazim, had already
begun to adopt surnames. Some of the new immigrants were undoubtedly labeled
as the Ashkenazim to differentiate the newcomers from themselves. And so,
the name stuck to a few families.
Someone in this conversation mentioned that an ancestor with a
variant of that name had lived in Vienna. Before 1848, a small number of
wealthy Jews lived in Vienna. People were granted the unusual privilege of
living there when the head of household was eligible to obtain a high level of
business license for trading or banking or had a profession that was useful
to the government. Some Jews had the right of temporary residence to
conduct business for periods of time, kind of like a visa, but then they had
to leave the city. Who were these people? Most were part of the small number
of
families known as Court Jews. A few years after Franz Josef came
to power as a teenager in 1848, he began a long process of loosening things up
for the Jews. It wasn't until Emancipation in 1868 that the residence
restrictions for Vienna were abolished altogether. Jews from all over the
Empire began to pour into Vienna." From a posting by Suzan Wynne
"Lars
Menk in his Dictionary of German Jewish surnames lists the
sixty most popular Jewish surnames in Germany and the areas of Central
and East Europe occupied by the Germans before 1918. The most popular was
Meyer, then Levy, then Cohn; WOLF [f] is the fourth. I guess the popularity of the WOLFF
name is about the same among all Ashkenazim." From a posting by Michael
Bernet
==When
groups of Jews settled in a new region of long-acculturated Jews,
they generally lost their earlier social an ritual distinctions
within two or three generations unless they were numerous and
powerful enough [e.g. the Iraqi
merchants among the Bnei Israel in India] to create their own
minhag-preserving
community that would perpetuate the earlier lifestyles. We do know
that some of the Ashkenasi merchants and rabbis in Sefardi countries returned
to their
earlier homes in countries with Ashkenasi customs, language and
rituals. It
is almost axiomatic that others named Ashkenasi who stayed, became
fully
integrated into the predominant Sefardi or Mizrachi culture.
From a posting by Michael Bernet and Celia Male
Sefardi Jews have started to arrive in the territory of
Polish Eastern Galicia following their expulsion from Spain and
Portugal, (1492 and 1497, respectively) They have been settling in towns and suburbs of
Przemysl, Drohobycz, Lwów and Stryj.
According to M. Horn [1] in the Red Rus (Eastern Galicia and
Wolyn) lands there were in existence 110 towns and in the 25 of them have been already established
Kehilat (Jewish communities).
Jewish Kehillot at this time were located exclusively in the 19 royal ("Miasta krolewskie") and 6 gentry towns (Miasta szlacheckie), mainly in the eight (8) towns of
Lwów and seventeen (17) towns of Przemysl, Belz and
Chelm lands.
Sephardim were not accustom to the eastern Jewish lifestyle and the majority of them have moved south to
Balkans, Turkey and Greece.
Some of the Sephardim families stayed in
Galicia and from those families have originated known in our proud history such distinguished scientists, writers, philosophers and medical doctors as Abraham Halevi, Abraham ben Yehuda, Shabtai ben Joseph, a brilliant historian Nathan Hanower, and others [2].
I have been working for sometime on the translation of 17th and 18th centuries
Drohobycz Jewish community records but the archaic Polish mixed with the Latin very long law sentences are very challenging.
In the one of those documents [3] there is a short list of the names of
Drohobycz Jewish Community executives for years 1716-1765. List is not completed, in some years only Rashim (Heads or Ratmans) and the Head Rashi are listed, in some Anashim Tovim (Good Men) are also added. It also evident that some names were not readable in the original manuscript damaged by
humidity or mold.
Name Yehoshua ben Yosef KATZ (kaf-tsade sofit) appears amongst the other Anashim Rashim in
Kehilat Vaad 1730 and 1734. Katz is definitely appears as his surname or perhaps his Kohen roots, as his and father's first names (Yehoshua ben Yosef) are follow by Katz.
I recall from my discussion with Israeli friend named Katz, that his surname depicts an alternative meaning of Kohen (Cohn, Kohn) - Kohein Tzaddik (hence: kaf tsadeh), and is definitely not a German for a cat.
This is probably the answer to Marlene's question about the special meaning
of Katz in Galicia - it is a written proof that Katz was a Kohen indeed."
References:
[1] Horn, M. " Zydzi na Rusi Czerwonej w XVI i pierwszej polowie XVII wiekow.", Warszawa, 1975, page 32 "Jews in the Red Rus during 16th and the first half of 17th centuries"
[2] Caro, J., "Geschichte der Juden in Lemberg, Krakow 1894, page 45 "A history of the Lemberg Jews".
Further regarding the surname Katz, Alexander Sharon posted the following on 6/2/2005 "It was my understanding that Ashkenazim Jews in Galicia had no official surnames prior to the introduction of the Austrian legislation.
Mention earlier Drohobycz Kehila records lists Yehoshua ben Yosef KATZ, Rashi of the Kehila in 1730 and 1734. Since Yehoshua ben Yosef was already his Hebrew name, how KATZ was added to this name:
Yehoshua ben Yosef, KZ, or Yehoshua ben Yosef KZ?
And since Germans Jews had no official surnames prior to the introduction of
Judenregelment in 1797, how KATZ surname appeared earlier in
Drohobycz ?
Couldn't Sephardim use Kohen Tzedek as the surname?"
"Jews in most of Europe did not use surnames until forced to take them by the governments in power from about the time of Napoleon. Before Napoleon, Jews used patronymics (Israel ben Chaim, for example, meaning Israel the son of Chaim). The Napoleonic reforms gave Jews more equal treatment by government but required that they take permanent surnames. The central and eastern European Empires saw the advantages of permanent Jewish surnames in terms of better tracking for taxes and military service. They adopted this requirement in the early 19th century, with less attention to granting more equal treatment for the Jews."
"Most states required that the selected surnames be in the language of the state, or at least that the names not be Biblical in some senses. The language of the Austrian Empire and of the Germanic states was German. The secular language of the Jews of central and eastern Europe was Yiddish, a language with substantial roots in medieval German. The language of the Russian Empire was
Russian, a Slavic language. Thus the surnames of central and eastern European Jews sound Germanic or Slavic because they are."
"Sometimes there was indeed a meaning that might translate from a Hebrew term, but in some areas only a limited number of specified names were available for Jews to choose from. From a submission to Gesher Galicia SIG by Peter Zavon on 2-11-01
"One of the things I've
discovered in my research is that names have been very
"fluid" in the earlier part of the 20h century.
So, when I send an application for a vital record, I
include all the possible variants I've thus far
located". From a posting by Stephanie Weiner
"As continuation on the Poland's Partitions subject, please allow me to initiate discussion on the origin of the Jewish surnames in
Galicia and lands that were under the Prussia and
Austria rules, since they are closely related.
All of us have been always interested with the issue of the origin of the Jewish surnames since this is our only link to the written genealogical records.
Galicia
As it is generally known, Galician Jews have been compelled to adopt German sounding surnames on July 23, 1787 during Joseph II, Empress Maria Theresa's son rule, following the introduction in 1781 the first genuine reforms in Central Europe - Judenreformen und Toleranzpatent (Jew-reforms and Edicts of Tolerance).
When in 1772 during the 1st Partition, Austria has captured new lands, which covered all of Western and Eastern Galicia, the Empire 1787 rule of surname adoption was extended to the all territories. This also included parts of
Wolyn and Podolia that have captured by Austria
at the same time.
This rule was extended to the regions of
Sandomierz, Lublin and Radom acquired by Austria
in 1795.
"There were some Jews who had previously adopted fixed surnames. While not a
large proportion of the population, keep in mind that there were many
circumstances that might have led to the use of fixed surnames.
When the Jews were invited to come to Poland by the Polish rulers, the idea
was that the Jews would bring their financial skills and connections to the
country. Many of the Jews welcomed in were from French and Germanic
territory and some used fixed surnames because they were business people.
Among those early settlers were important and influential rabbinic families
seeking a haven where they could feel safe.
Rabbinic families had long used fixed surnames, though there were instances
when the husband adopted his wife's surname if it were more prestigious than
their own family name. When Poland exiled the Jews, they scattered widely.
Some adopted surnames during their exile and returned to Poland with them
when they were able to return to their interrupted lives and businesses.
For instance, families who went to Italy adopted surnames there. The name
Rappaport and other configurations of that name stems from that period.
Some rabbinic families had long had surnames like Katz and Sack/Zack that
are derived from Hebrew acronyms. Another example of a family with a
surname was a Fischel family that was invited to Poland by the king in the
mid 1500s. The family came from Bohemia. They were prominent court
physicians, rabbis and money lenders for at least the next century and
marriages to the females spawned several rabbinic families.
So, while the vast majority of Jews didn't have true surnames but used
patronymics and matronymics, i.e., the names of their fathers usually but occasionally, their mothers, some Jews did have fixed surnames prior to the
law mandating the adoption of surnames. Then too, Josef II and his mother,
Maria Theresa, had made one or two previous, albeit weak and mostly unsuccessful efforts, to require surname adoption during the earlier years
of Austrian rule so, presumably, some people did comply with those earlier
laws.
The vast majority of Jews did not have fixed surnames in 1788 and so had to adopt one. I have never been able to find any official list (as there were in Germany) providing us with a link for the name used before and the new name. I have written to Vienna and for some years had conversations with people within the Mormon circle interested in Jewish records but no such
lists have come to light as yet. There are numerous lists of people in old documents that give us a clear picture of what surnames people used prior to 1788 but without a conversion list, it is very difficult to make the leap from Chaim Dawidowicz to Chaim Rosenberg.
From a posting by Suzan Wynne
"It was a common practice as well as
pre-1837 records of getting married or baptized to get a parish record
as proof of who you were as a Ketubbah saying Moshe ben Isaac in Hebrew
wasn't much help with an official over a will." The reason the
parish records entries stopped in 1837 was that compulsory civil
registration of births was introduced that year. Every (live)
birth was required to be registered so that Parish Record entries were
no longer needed. From a posting by Malcolm Malki Katz and
additionally by Henry Best
"Does anyone have the approximate
proportion of Jewish males -- in specific communities, at specific times, or world wide -- who are mustered among Cohanim (the Priestly group) or among non-Kohanic Levites?
This posting is relevant to Jewish genealogy since the Cohen or Levite status is hereditary in the male line, usually appears in records and
tombstones, and easily helps to establish the likelihood that a new-found person is statistically likely to be of the same family.
Lars Menk states in his Dictionary of German Jewish Surnames
(Which includes large areas that were later Poland, Czechoslovakia and
Baltic
Republics) that of the 8, 696 different surnames that he found, 0.6% were
indicators of Kohanic origin and 0.4% of Levitic origin. That is the percentage of
*names*, not of *individuals*.
He states that of the men he lists between 1800 and 1865, 1.87% were
named Cohen or a variant spelling (Cohn = 0.70%, Kahn 0.52%, Cahn 0.25%, Cohen 0.20%, Kohn 0.16%, Cahen 0.04%)
Levy (and variant spellings) for that period amounted to 1.18% (Levy
0.64%, Levi 0.38%, Lewy 0.15%, Lewi 0.01%) Listed elsewhere is Lewin with an additional 0.32%
Somewhat surprising are the figures for German Jewish
soldiers
who died in WW I (10,623 of them). 2.32% were named Levy etc. and 2.48% were named
Cohn
etc. Does anyone wish to hypothesize why these names were so much
popular (or the young men so much more gung-ho to fight for the Kaiser) in
1914-1918 than in 1800-1865?
Full disclosure: My father's elder brother, Albert Bernet, and his two Bernet second cousins, were killed in WW I. It wasn't a large family
by any means--just two Bernet cousins survived!
Please note: I am not enquiring about the frequency of the Cohen or
Levy *name*, but about the percentage of Jewish males in the world/in any
community or period, who were/are descended from the Kohanim or from the
Levites." From a posting by Michael Bernet, New York
There are 299,968,595
people in the United States of America. If everyone in the
U.S. lined up single file, the line would stretch around the
Earth almost 7 times. That's a lot of people.
The U.S. Census Bureau
statistics tell us that there are at least 88,799 different
last names and 5,163 different first names in common use in
the United States. Some names are more common than others.
What about you? How many
people share your name? Enter it and find out how many of
you there are.
Galician Jewish Names - "In
a blurb for the first book in a series "Grandeur and Glory (of
Galicia)" by Rabbi Meir Wunder, (Avotaynu 2006) I noticed the
following town names.
==I was surprised how many family names they evoked, names I'd
encountered in life, names from postings to JewishGen, names in my
morning newspaper.
==Who would have thought that Berisch, Burstein, Felsstein, Kalusch, Chodorov, Kosover, Kalikow, Laskow, Lopatin, Nemirov, Obertin, . .
. might all be named after towns in Polish Galicia.
==Advice: whenever you come across a new Ashkenazi family name, run
it through the ShtetlSeeker, _ http://www.jewishgen.org/ShtetlSeeker/LocTown.asp_ using the Soundex option, of course. For all you know, even a
Schneider or a Schuster or a Schochet may be named after an
ancestral town rather than after his trade.
==And while you're about it, ask ShtetlSeeker to list the locations
within a 30-mile radius--it may give you other locations that were
home towns for other ancestors--or even conform to ancestors'
surnames." From a posting by Michael Bernet MBernet@aol.com
Germany -
Germans Jews had no official surnames prior to the introduction of Judenregelment in 1797.
Michael Bernet posted the following: "the customs of Western
Ashkenazim (German, Dutch and Alsatian Jews) who settled in England and
established their first congregation in 1690 - just 35 years after the
re-admission of Jews to England. These Jews retained the Germanic
pattern by taking their father's first name as the second element of
their name (e.g. London's first Chief Rabbi, Solomon Hirschel, was the
son of R. Hirschel Levin; as Frankfurt's Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch was
the son of Rafael Frankfurter). In other words, their custom was
to add the father's name to their own but did not assume their father's
name. It was these Germanic Jews who established the rituals of
Britain's United Synagogue that remains the English standard, even after
the arrival of Polish/Russian immigrant Jews a full two centuries later
(starting around 1890).
"The information stamped on Nazi
German "Empire" certificates is a notice that all Jewish men are
named Israel and women are named Sara. It officially takes
away the first names which the people were actually given."
From a posting by Sally Bruckheimer.
"This is a common misconception,
but is not strictly true. The name Israel or Sara as an
additional name, and the Nazi-era documents dated after the
addition of the name generally include both the original and the
added name, e.g. "Alfred Israel Cohn". I have seen
notations of the name addition on many birth certificates, and
in one or two cases the notation specified the position of the
added name, whether as first or second name. Apparently
the order could be and sometimes was interpreted in such a way
as to allow this choice.
These notations are useful for
genealogy in that they establish the presence of the individual,
alive and in Germany, on the date of the notation, as the person
had to appear at the original registry office in person to carry
out the order.
The added names were removed upon
order of the occupation authorities and in some cases the birth
record includes a formal notation of the removal.
Unfortunately, these notations, which I have seen dated as late
as 1960, have no genealogical significance at all, as I have
seen them on records of people I know from family members to
have perished." From a posting by Dick Plotz
For more information on German names, go into the
JewishGEN GERSIG archives and click on "names". Family
names became obligatory in 1787 in Austria and in
Prussia in 1812.
"In many states, these "new"
family names could be chosen freely. In others, certain
types of names were not allowed (but "old" family names were not
affected by these restrictions). This usually applied to
names from the Hebrew Bible and names based on place
names, which shows that the purpose of such measures was to
prevent Jews from taking "new" names that were "typically
Jewish". In other words, the authorities wanted to reduce
the differences between Jews and Gentiles to a minimum, making
assimilation a prerequisite for "emancipation", i.e. equal
rights. Note that in Prussia and elsewhere, Jews were given
citizenship "on condition" that they take a permanent family
name." From a posting by Joachim Mugdan
Poland - JRI-Poland also has their website Patronymic files which can be downloaded and viewed. These files cover the years 1808-1825 when many Jews did not have surnames and when the Jewish records were recorded together with their Christian neighbors. JRI-Poland volunteers have extracting data from these LDS film in order. Look on the homepage for the link to the patronymic files. http://jri-poland.org/
Poles do not use patronymics. An unmarried woman may attach "owna" to her maiden name. In some cases she would use "anka" rather than "owna". In similar way a married woman would attach "owna" to her husband's surname. These forms are used less often nowadays.
Prussia
Prussia
introduced similar to the Austrian law in 1797 known as Judenregelment and forced the use of Germanic surnames on the Jewish population of captured during three
Partitions:
Pomorze (Gdansk), Chelmno, Warmia part of
Wielkopolska with Bydgoszcz, Torun and
Malbork were captured in 1772. This territory became known as
West Prussia.
Following Prussian 1793 acquisitions (2nd Partition) the rest of
Wielkopolska (Gniezno, Poznan), Plock, Lodz, Czestochowa regions were also incorporated and became known as
South Prussia.
1795 (3rd Partition) Prussian new acquisitions of
Mazowsze (included Warsaw) became known as Mazovia, and NW region west of Niemen River (Bialystok) was named New East Prussia. The new territory located south of
Czestochowa was named New Silesia.
E.T.A ( Ernest Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, a vicious anti-Semitic Prussian law officer was placed in charge of the enforcing Germanic sounding surnames through the new Prussian territories.
Hoffmann developed a list of an 'acceptable' for Jews surnames, and he and his malignant staff clerks foisted unpleasant surnames on the poor Jews, who were unable to came up with a bribe to secure a 'pleasant' surname. Hoffmann became later famous after the publication of opera "The Tales of Hoffmann".]
Russia
Russia has introduce law for surnames use for Jews in 1804 during but in reality start enforcing this policy only in 1834.
And this is my point - Jewish people that have been under Austrian
or Prussian reign prior to 1815 Vienna Congress have been already given
German sounding surnames which have been later accepted by the
Russian administration. And this is a main reason for the Jews having German sounding surnames through the Congress Poland."
References:
[1] Karl Emil Franzos, "Namensstudien", 1880 [2] Erwin Manuel Dreifuss, Die Familiennamen der Jude, 1927 [3] Dietz Bering "The Stigma of Names. Anti-Semitism in German Daily Life, 1812-1933", Cambridge 1992
The above dissertation was posted by Alexander Sharon on 5/25/05
Isser Kulisher published a
book of Jewish given names in 1911 that were prevalent in the
Russian Empire. It's primary purpose was to help the
Russian bureaucrats determine who was who as far as Jews were
concerned. Isaac could also be Izack or Itzack, etc.
Boris Feldblyum translated Kulisher's work into English and
Avotaynu republished the introduction, names and index with
Feldblyum adding his own commentary. The book "Russian-Jewish
Given Names," begins with a historical overview of Jewish
given names from the Russian Empire. Followed by a list of
all the given names Kulisher could find, organized by root name
often including its etymology. The last section is an
index listing all names alphabetically and identifying the root
name.
"For those of us interested in genealogy, it is important to know exact origin of the family name: is it Poland, Ukraine or Russia? It can tell where this name was adapted - where your ancestors used to live. What's more - Russian, like some other Slavic languages, has three forms of adjectives: masculine, feminine and neutral. In Polish, the name Charny would be: Charny - Carna - Charno (in Polish Ch = Cz and in Cyrillic, it is one letter not present in Latin). When I was Charny in
Russia, my wife was Charnaya. If you are Charny in
Lithuania, it would be charnas (or Charnis) and your wife and daughter would be Charnene and Charnaite. Charny is
Polish and - Chorny in Russian and - Cherny in Czechs, etc. In
Russian, it is "Black", "Dark" is "Tyomny" (tyomnaya, tyomnoe)."
Posted on JewishGen on 12-8-1996 by Vitaly Charny.
Link to the 1804 and 1835 "Imperial Statutes Concerning the Organization of Jews," which required Jews to take surnames.
Vysochaishe utverzhdennoe Polozhenie. - O ustroistve Evreev Imperial Statute Concerning the Organization of Jews December 9, 1804 http://www.olswanger.com/article32.shtml
3. Names from city of residence: Examples: BERLIN, FRANKFURTER, DANZIGER, OPPENHEIMER, DEUTSCH (German), POLLACK (Polish), BRESLAU, MANNHEIM, CRACOW, WARSHAW
Auerbach Bamberger
Baumberger Berlin Breslau Brody Cracow Danziger Deutsch (German) Dreyfuss (Alsatian corruption of Treves) Dresner (Dresden) Frank (From Franconia) -- some say it's like Frankel, a sobriquet for Ephraim Frankfurter Horowitz (Slavic: Gurovitz) Landau (From London) Lasker Littauer (From Lithuania) Mannheim Oppenheimer Pinsky, Pinsker (From Pinsk) Pollack (Polish) Schlesinger (From Silesia) Schwab (From Swabia) Spiro (Speyer from Speyer, whence also Shapiro) Pollack (From Poland) Warshaw Weil Wiener (From Vienna) The above information obtained from a posting by Nick Landau to JewishGen on May 26, 1998
4. Bought names:
Examples:
Berg (mountain) Diamond GlucK (luck) Kershenblatt (church paper) KOENIG (king) Koenigsberg (king's mountain) LIEBER (lover) ROSEN (roses)
ROSENBLATT (rose paper or leaf) ROSENBERG (rose mountain) Rothman (red man)
SPIELMAN (spiel is to play) Stein (glass) Wasserman (water dweller)
Argentinean Surnames - on this web-site you'll find an index of almost all the surnames actually in use in the
Argentine Republic (based on 1997 data), with an indication of how many people, aged 18 or more, have each surname. http://surnames.rutrin.com.ar/index.shtml
It was very common in the 19th century that sons took different surnames to avoid military service. It was also common that sons took their mother's surname.
Russian Names - Russian
oriented cultures, the "middle" name is the first name of the
father connected by a suffix of "vitch" (or variation) for "son
of" and "ovna (or variation) for "daughter of". Then comes
the actual surname. From a posting by Maria Torres
Searching for First and Last Names
In many on-line database search forms, the first name field is optional, so how do you know whether you should include a first name in your search? Searching on-line with only a surname increases the number of 'hits' you will get, thus increasing your choices of sites to visit and potentially find information. Using a full name on the other hand, reduces the number of hits you get, which can be helpful when you're dealing with a popular surname. When searching with an uncommon name, search with only surnames; use full names when you're searching for information about someone with a really common name.
Surname Navigator Search multiple databases with one surname entry. This is a very interesting site as once you fill in with a surname, because of its unique multiple database searching, many different sites that the site finds containing the surname selected by you pops-up. Although I didn't find any truly relevant connections, it did provide me with some interesting links. http://www.rat.de/kuijsten/navigator/russia/index.html
These are the countries that Surname Navigator searches:
Most books, CDs, etc. can be ordered
through my link to Amazon.com by clicking here > Jewish Genealogy
"A Dictionary of Jewish Names and their History" - authored by Benzion C. Kaganoff published by Schocken Books, New York in 1977
Buy
from Amazon.com
and "The Complete Dictionary of English and Hebrew First Names" are two fine books with
realistic naming information. Bear in mind though, that names of ancestors or the correct spellings of names is not scientific.
"A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland" - authored by Alexander Beider
Buy
from Amazon.com
Note that many times, old records spell a name one way, while shtetl records may spell (or even name the same person) differently. Much of these differences come about because of the specific location within a country. My surname, Margulis, is pronounced Mar goo liss in
Ukraine, and Mar GO liss in Lithuania and Poland. This is one of the problems that a Jewish genealogical researcher faces, so therefore Mr. Daitch and Mr. Mokotoff created a Jewish version of the Soundex system. This system allows a search on every possible name that uses most of the same letters and will return every possible name it identifies with those letters. A free database covering
these area include: the
Ukraine, Belorussia, Bessarabia, Lithuania, and
Russia. http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/inddbs/3173.htm
"A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire"Buy
from Amazon.com
and
"A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland"Buy
from Amazon.com
- authored by Alexander Beider. Beider is a Moscow born Jewish émigré living in Paris and is a proven skilled and savvy name smith. He is a computer consultant and project analyst by day, and moonlights in libraries and archives, in Paris and elsewhere, to research his favorite topic -- Jewish names. His books are published by Avotaynu, Inc. of New Jersey. Check this site for Jewish names: dagnlist.htm
A great research resource. Click on the image for additional information.
"Hebrew Deeds of English Jews Before 1290" - authored by Myer David Davis and published in London by Publication of the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibit, No. 2, Office of the "Jewish Chronicle", 1888). www.pantera-designs.com/pnec/personaemicon.htm
"Jewish Family Names and Their Origins: An Etymological Dictionary" - authored by Heinrich W. & Eva H. Guggenheimer
Buy
from Amazon.com
"Jewish Naming Convention in Angevin England"
-by Eleazar ha-Levi. The purpose of this paper is to use the naming conventions adopted by the Jews of Medieval England (c.1070 - 1290) as a way of generalizing the rules of period Jewish naming. Three basic rules were applied in naming Jewish children throughout the medieval period and, even, up to the present time: the Talmud,
kinnui (secular) versus shem ha-kadosh (sacred) names, and the role of the female in Jewish ritual practice. http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/jewish.html
"Jewish Personal Names: Their Origin, Derivation and Diminutive Forms"
- authored by the late Rabbi Shmuel Gorr and later edited by Chaim Freedman and published by Avotaynu in 1992.
"Les Noms des Juifs du Maroc"
authored by Abraham Laredo and published in Madrid, Spain in 1978
"The Mountain of Names:
A History of the Human Family" - authored by Alex
Shoumatoff. It is a fascinating work for anyone interested
in genealogy
"The Origin of Jewish Surnames" - authored by Benzion Kaganoff
"Russian Jewish Surnames" - authored by Boris Feldblyum
General Name Information
"Inherited surnames were virtually non-existent among European Jews at the beginning of the 19th century. Depending on where your family came from, adoption of surnames occurred officially as late as 1845 in Prussia, 1826 in Russia. Jews in Prussia were forced to take surnames in 1812. The rules were applied in Austria in 1787, under French (Napoleonic) rule in 1808, and in most of Germany before 1820."
"The Jews however did not adopt the names with enthusiasm -- they helped the government tax and draft and restrict the Jews. In the culturally more advances countries, the adoption of surnames was linked to a wide range of civil and civic rights; in many cases, however, these rights were soon limited again or rescinded."
"Brothers often took the same surname; cousins didn't coordinate. It wasn't just a matter of indifference, though, that cause different names to be adopted."
From a posting by Michael BernetmBernet@aol.com on 11/21/02 on JewishGen
"In the case of oral traditions, the number of generations from the event will impact the story. Says Chaim Freedman, noted genealogists and author, "If someone's grandfather says HIS grandfather was a fourth generation descendant of a famous rabbi, there are 32 possible lines of descent." If the link is not found by the current generation, and the next generation must look for it, there will be 64 lines to research." This was obtained from an article entitled
"It's All Relative: Seeds of Truth" by Schelly Talalay Dardashti in her column - City Lights -in The Jerusalem Post dated February 14, 2002 http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/02/17/ JewishWorld/JewishWorld.43575.html
I found the following posting on JewishGen of February 20, 2002 by Jeanne Gold quite interesting as she showed the sources she had used to find
Lomza- and Israel MORRIS. This information could be used by others - a sort of a template to follow for finding information. Thank Jeanne Gold
Groupie@digging4roots.com not me.
Using the Morse/Tobias search pages stevemorse.org for the Ellis Island database produced over 200+ hits for the surname MORRIS.
Next I tried the
Consolidated Jewish Name Index - a database of more than
370,000 surnames, mostly Jewish, extracted from 31 other
databases and offered by Avotaynu. www.avotaynu.com/csi/csi-home.html
and more than 180 names came up for the DM 694000 (MORRIS). Specifically for this surname, I found the following references most suggestive:
MORES - A,B; MORETS - B,J,N; MORETZ - B,M; MOREZ - B; MORICE - S; MORIS - I,Q,m; MORISSE - R; MORITS - C, H, J; MORITZ - A, H, I, L, M, P, Q, R, S, T, i ,j, n
which means these surnames can be found in the following:
A: JRIP B: All Lithuanian DB C: All Belarus DB H: JewishGen Family Finder I: Family Tree of the Jewish People J: Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire L: Sourcebook for Jewish Genealogies and Family Histories M: Index to Russian Consular Records N: Belarus Surname Index P: First American Jewish Families Q: Palestine Gazette R: Gedenkbuch (128,000 German Jews murdered in the Holocaust) S: Index to Memorial to the Jews Deported From France T: National Registry of Jewish Holocaust Survivors i: Cleveland (Ohio) Burials j: Birth Index for Buda Jewry 1820-1852, 1868 n: ROM-SIG Family Finder
Behind the Name - the etymology and history of
first names which deals with English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Muslim, Indian, Irish, Mythology, Biblical and many more name subjects http://www.behindthename.com
Kabalarian Philosophy behind a name
-
Ask yourself: "If I did not have a name, how could I identify myself? If I had no name, who would I be?" http://www.kabalarians.com/cfm/your.cfm
The population of the 19th century England
to which most of today's Anglo-Jews emigrated was far more homogeneous; thus, "foreign" names
stuck out like a sore thumb. So the rate of Anglicization of Jewish
names was far higher than in USA -- where Jewish names would hardly
stand out in the New York City phone book among the names of German
or Russian gentiles. From a posting by Judith Romney Wegner
Family names (surnames) were not used officially by Jews in Germany (except in
Hesse-Cassell) until the early years of the 19th century (the year depends on location). Male Jews were known by their first name followed directly by the name of their father sometimes with the addition of Jud; Females were known by their first name+wife/widow/daughter of [full name].
Submitted to JewishGen Discussion Group by Michael Bernet on 12/22/01
Foreign Name Cross-Referenced
- This site allows you to cross-reference English given first names to their
Czechoslovakian, German, Hungarian, Polish, Slovakian, Russian or Yiddish or equivalents. Great site! http://www.rootsweb.com/~scoconee/names.html
German Names - according to Alexander Beider, author of several books on the subject of names, he observed that "Jews borrowed a very significant number of names from their Christian neighbors during the 11th to the 13th centuries." His research into Jewish first names also led him to question what many Jewish historians have long held as fact -- that the Jews of Eastern Europe were descended from the earlier Jewish settlements in the Rhineland. "This idea is very simplistic" and accounts for only part of the picture, he said. "It should be nuanced"
"German Jews did not name children "after" a living ancestor. That was as much a non-no as it was in Eastern Europe. Nor was there a hard-and-fast rule about whom children were named after ; it was something worked out by the parents on the basis of those who had died, those who had already had a child named after them, the social or rabbinic standing of an ancestor, whose side of the family needed appeasement and so on--and often on the basis of a relative who had died in the months immediately preceding the birth."
"There are two reasons why some mistakenly assume that children were named AFTER a certain living person.
1. In Western European countries it was the official civil (not Jewish) rule that Jews without specific surnames had their fathers' names tacked on after their own. My oldest recorded ancestor in the direct male line was Suessel Hirsch; all his children had Suesslein tacked on their names: Hirsch Suesslein, Salomon Suesslein, Mandel Suesslein, Elkan Suesslein and so on. Hirsch's son Suesslein was called Suesslein Hirsch, Salomon's son might be names Suesslein Salomon and so on. This was very close to the Hebrew naming system where the word for "son of" (Heb. "ben," Aramaic "bar" would be placed between the name of the son and of the father. This pattern often continued for a generation or so after family names were acquired; often these family names were the names of the father, e.g. my ancestor Baruch, son of Wolff took the full official name Baruch WOLFF. Again, though the second part of their name was that of their father, it remained the father's personal name and was never the son's personal name."
2. "There was no rule about giving someone the same first name as that of a living person. In my mother's family there were many ancestors named Leo and many named Jonas. As a result my mother had nearly a dozen cousins named Jonas (her grandfather had 16 children) and another dozen named Leo. She also had a brother named Jonas; the only reason why she didn't have a brother Leo was that she had only one brother."
"From about 1850, with the spread of reform Judaism and a giving up of traditions, some Jews in Germany (and France and Hungary and the United States . . . were less concerned about Jewish traditions and here or there a child might even be given the father's name, but it was relatively rare and cannot be said to have been part of a style or subject to a rule."
"It warms my heart to see how JewishGenners are eager to help fellow Genners understand their ancestry but we should all be careful not to simply repeat as if true stories that we have not properly learned or studied." From a posting by Michael Bernetmbernet@aol.com on 1/19/03
In the 19th century, Jews in
Germany strongly began to adopt a certain set of about 500 German secular names which were ultimately recognized by the rabbis as acceptable to be written in a Get (Jewish divorce document).
Folk etymology is just one of the
many fascinating aspects of Alexander Beider's Books.
Additional information about "A Dictionary of Ashkenazic Given
Names: Their Origins, Structure, Pronunciation and Migrations"
can be found at the Avotaynu site
http://www.avotaynu.com/books/dagn.htm
"About 1948, a new
German law removed the names Israel and Sara that had been added by the Nazis, and some birth records reflect this reversal. I have been puzzled, though, by the lack of a clear pattern as to which records show the removal. I have never seen the notation on the birth record of anyone who survived the Holocaust: only those who had been murdered seem to have 'benefited' from the 1948 law. I believe that in 1938/39, each individual had to appear at the Standesamt of the town where their birth was registered to take on the added name, so that those who had emigrated never had the name added; the notation of an added name provides a date on which the individual was definitely still alive and in Germany. Clearly, the individuals themselves were unable to participate in the removal of added names. So at whose instigation was this function performed? It was not done by systematically going through birth registers and adding a notation to each record with an added name. The process lasted over many years, well into the 1950s, and birth registers contain records with and without removals, apparently arbitrarily intermixed. The above was obtained from a posting to JewishGen by Dick PlotzDick@plotz.com on 10/31/1998
Some of the entries included in the Vsia Rossia - "All Russia" Business Directory refer to different state and local offices where Jews were not allowed employment. These entries are of less interest to Jewish genealogy so, to save time and money, these fields may contain un-translated Russian transliterations.
Hebrew Naming - The website : "My Hebrew Name" offers a free, online, database to look up, view, print and save your/their Hebrew name (s). http://www.my-hebrew-name.com
Your Hebrew name is displayed using the Hebrew characters with nikud (vowels) and provides a transliteration for those who have not yet mastered the reading of this ancient/modern language. You do not need Hebrew fonts to view or print the Hebrew names.
The database also contains thousands of English names linked to the Hebrew names, although one's English name (s) and Hebrew name (s) may not be related. The Hebrew Name database contains direct transliterations of many Hebrew names, offering many links between English names and Hebrew names based on popular usage.
From a posting on 6/15/04 by Pamela Weisberger pweisberger@hotmail.com
Holland -
In the Netherlands, as in all of French Napoleonic occupied Europe, the Jews were ordered to choose [and register with the local "Maire"] a
surname [as all (!) inhabitants were considered citizens], over here that
was in 1811.
Hungarian Naming - "Many of my Hungarian Jewish relatives had names that are on Rachel's list or are similarly Germanic or Hungarian."
"Rachel doesn't indicate the context in which she found these names (e.g. civil records, Jewish records, census records) or whether her relatives used these name in Hungary or after they emigrated. She also doesn't indicate whether they also Magyarized their surnames. My less affluent, more orthodox Hungarian relatives spoke Yiddish at home and used Yiddish names among family but had a Hungarian name used outside their immediate circle."
"For example, my mother has a cousin she always referred to as Pinchas who identified himself as Paul to immigration officials and was called Pityu in
Hungary. Many affluent and assimilated Hungarian Jews spoke Hungarian or German at home and were given Hungarian or German names, rather than Yiddish names at birth. In the birth records their religious (Hebrew names) are in parentheses following the Hungarian given name."
"Other examples include my father B. Kereszt, Hung. in 1903, who was named Elemer, a very Hungarian name that is not really a Magyar version of Elmer. His family spoke Hungarian at home. He could only understand Yiddish, which my mother spoke at home, because he had studied German in school. He had a brother born Miksa who was called Max. Several cousins were named Arpad, another traditional Magyar man's name with no Anglo counterpart. I've also come across or have family named Maria (Marika), Ludvik (Lajos), Marta, Frieda (Fried), Hugo, Kornel (Cornelius)."
Submitted by Vivian Kahn, Hungarian SIG Coordinator 1/23/03
Iranian Naming - as in family names around the world, Iranian names (of any religious origin) can indicate geographical location, physical or personality characteristics, occupation, etc.
Jewish Naming Traditions - there are many sources for explanation of Jewish naming traditions. Sephardic and Ashkenazic traditions differ greatly. For detailed information:
Jewish Naming Guide - a table listing many of the popular names with suggestions for what Hebrew/Jewish names they might take http://www.kolot.com/FS1999/names.shtml
"In traditional circles in the shtetl were kinnuim fairly loosely associated in the way that secular names and their Hebrew equivalents are used nowadays, or were there more rigid naming conventions and if so how do we determine what applied at that time?"
Names in the Fayvush family of Yiddish names were kinnuim for the Hebrew name Yechezkeyl in only the following countries:
Austria, Germany, and
Holland. To my knowledge, Fayvush was not a kinnui for Yechezkeyl in
Lithuania.
One of the reasons for these variations from region to region in Europe for where kinnuim were used with specific Hebrew names, was that the Yiddish dialects were different across Europe. Thus in Western Europe, the Yiddish dialect was the Western European dialect (including
Germany and Holland), in a transitional region (which included
Bohemia, Moravia, parts of
Hungary, and other regions) transitional dialects between Western and the Eastern European dialects were used, the Litvish dialect was spoken in
Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, NE Ukraine and NE Poland, while in most of
Poland and Galicia the Polish/Galician dialect was spoken, and in most of
Ukraine, parts of Eastern Galicia, Romania, and SE
Poland the Ukrainian dialect was spoken.
This topic of Hebrew name/Kinnui relationship was the subject of intense research by rabbis throughout Europe for a number of centuries, as the Yiddish dialects slowly changed and moved around. Their research results were compiled in Jewish law books for Divorce procedures, such as the "Aruch Hashulchan" which applied to the regions where the Litvish dialect was spoken, and the "Get Mesudar" which was mainly applicable to the
regions of Germany, with additions for
Hungary, and Poland.
For their region and time period, the rabbis' research consisted of gathering name data from Divorce Rabbis (those who wrote the Get for a couple who were divorcing) and analyzing these data statistically for names which must be written in the Gittin. The results of their data analysis showed clearly what were the Hebrew-name/Kinnui relationships which were chosen by Jews on a statistical basis. The rabbis summarized these results in their books of Hilchot Gittin (Laws of Divorce) and these books were guidebooks for the Divorce Rabbis.
One must not be rigid in using these regionalized Hilchot Gittin books, for Jews moved around from region to region for a wide variety of reasons, including finding a marriage partner, and also forced migrations as a result of persecution. So, it is possible to find exceptions to the rules listed in one region's book. Still, this exception only allows genealogists to adopt a trial hypothesis which much be proven by further research."
In a
message dated 9/3/2006 5:51:44 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Ema609@aol.com writes:
<< If i remember correctly according to Jewish law if the
mother is married to a man and the baby's father is not the
husband it is considered illegitimate as she has no last name
to give it . If a woman is not married and has a baby it is
legitimate because she can give it her last name. >>
==a point of reference important in genealogical research: There is
no concept of "surname" in Jewish law. The surname didn't
officially exist in the past and is irrelevant today. In halakha
(Jewish law) a person is known by his/her own name and a patronym
(occasionally a matronym or a husband's name).
==Jewish law considers all children to be legitimate, unless the
child is a mamzer, the fruit of a forbidden union, either according
to the rules of incest or because the mother was married to someone
other than the child's father when the infant was conceived.
According to sociologists and anthropologists, the latter ruling is
based on custom among pastoral and agricultural tribes and relates
to keeping property within the tribe/clan/family. Surnames are
irrelevant in this context; parentage is the central issue.
==a mamzer is "excluded" from the community and cannot marry a
legal Jew but can marry another mamzer or a gentile. A mamzer's
child is also a mamzer but the child of a gentile woman and a
Jewish mamzer is considered a gentile and can convert to Judaism
without the mamzer's stigma.
==While a mamzer is excluded from Jewish marriage, he/she inherits
within the family like any other heir, he/she can hold any office
(even become a king) and according to Horayot 3:8, "a mamzer who is
a scholar takes precedence over a high priest who is an ignoramus."
==When Christian or state records indicate a birth as illegitimate,
it is based on church rules and can mean that 1. the father is unknown 2. the father is known but the union did not accord with church
law because the marriage was performed as a Jewish ceremony only (a
"shtille chuppe" in Yiddish) because either the union was
considered incestuous by church law but not by Jewish law (e.g.
with a niece or a cousin), or was not authorized by the civil authorities who imposed strict limitation on the marriage
of Jewish men, requiring a prospective groom to have large assets
or a profitable career, or limiting the number of men in a family
who were legally permitted to marry--generally one only--in order to
limit the size of the local Jewish population. (This was a major
impetus for migration)
==In past centuries in Europe, a child whose father was not know
would be a grave embarrassment to the family and to the community.
The mother was frequently compelled to leave the community. Not
infrequently she was paired off with a non-Jew, or she was
encouraged by the local church to be baptized. The child was often
taken in by relatives, or sent to live with relatives far away
("nach Amerika" is the comment on the family tree for a nephew of
my 5xgf). The mother of a mamzer, and the child, too, were an even
greater embarrassment to the family and the community.
==Being classified as illegitimate in church registers or civil
registers did not affect the standing of the couple or their
children within the Jewish community or according to Jewish law and
customs, so long as the union was halakhically accepted. The child
of a Jewish couple who are not married to each other but whose
union would have been religiously acceptable, bore no official
stigma (but it might well have been a family embarrassment. From
a posting by Michael Bernet,
Middle Names - "We have to be careful in interpreting 'middle names'. In most places, Jews did not have middle names as we know them in the 21st century US."
"Many Eastern Europeans had a patronymic, usually with a '-witz' or '-owna' ending, with variations because of different languages. However, sometimes the patronymic did not have such ending-this was common in Western Europe-Marum Moses was Marum the son of Moses."
"It is also possible that the 'middle name' is not a separate name, but part of a double name- Abraham Samuel Ruslander had the first name 'Abraham Samuel' and no middle name. He could be called Abe or Sam or something else. It can be confusing as nobody specifies."
"The 'middle' name can also be a nickname, some characteristic which is used to distinguish the holder of the name from others of the same first name. My favorite is a Dutch 'Verooglooper' (please excuse the spelling, I don't have any copy of a document at hand). Abraham Verooglooper-Abraham the Gimp in English. Sometimes you get a place name used this way as well."
"It is possible that the wife's name is added-like Mina's Abraham (in English) as opposed to another Abraham. Minin could well be this, as the form is right."
"And there can be a Yiddish, a Russian, a Polish, a Lithuanian, a Hebrew name-it is possible that one of those got tossed in with another."
"And of course there are various types of diminutives of the various types, so there are lots of possibilities. For this particular situation I don't have any firm answer. "
Posted on JewishGen 4-23-03 by Sally Bruckheimer
sallybru@bluemoon.net
Name Searching on the Internet
- people search database http://www.yahoo.com follow the link for People Search and enter the name you are researching. Also try Google www.google.com Here you can use a name and/or a phone number in the 'Search' bar
Naming Customs -
In a message dated 1/15/2003 10:15:55 PM Eastern Standard Time,
DanielGee@btopenworld.comwrites:
"as I understand it. It is traditional to name a baby after a deceased relative, but to reconsider if a relation with that name is alive."
"That is a common misunderstanding. It is common to give a child a name by which to keep the memory of the deceased among the living. Among Ashkenazim in general, one doesn't call a child "after" a living ancestor. However, there is NO qualm about giving many children (cousins etc) the same name, either after the same ancestor or a different ancestor."
"There is a custom that it is improper for a person to utter the name of a parent or grandparent. Thus, if my father Isaac is alive, I might hesitate to call my child Isaac after my wife's deceased father of the same name."
"I might even hesitate to marry a woman named Sarah if my mother Sarah is alive; if I'm not that rigid about things, I might call my son by the variant Itzik or Eysig, and my wife Sorke or Sarai."
"Essentially, "calling after" is a special honor for one deceased; there is no rule against naming many people in the extended family by the same name, either because they're commemorating the same ancestor, or because they're commemorating different ancestors, or because it's a name that my wife and I happen to like."
"The critical point is "naming after." Nothing wrong with just "naming."
From a posting by Michael BernetMBernet@aol.com on 1-19-03
"In Sephardic circles it is an honor to name a child after a living relative. Often the name is reversed so that the new baby is Yakov Yosef after a father named Yosef Yakov. This is a tradition."
"In Ashkenazic circles a child is usually not named after a living relative. This is a custom. To think that giving a name to a child after a living member of the family is a death wish, is superstition."
"It so happens that in Germany it was quite common to name a child of Jakov Joseph, Joseph Jakov. The child's personal name was Joseph. He was not "named" after the father. It was simply common practice that Jews who had no official surname were officially known by their own first name followed by the father's first name, without the intervening "ben" or "Sohn des."
"Not long ago someone on this list expressed surprise that the famous leader of Modern Orthodoxy, Rabbi Samason Raphael Hirsch bore the same name as his father. It must be emphasized that he was not "named" Raphael after his father (who was initially named Raphael Frankfurter while he was living in Hamburg); rather, his identity was augmented by the addition of his father's name. Such naming pattern (son's name + father's name) was quite common until the mid-19th century among Ashkenazim in most parts of Europe, including England."
"A Jewish woman was also recorded at birth by her name and her father's name; after marriage, if her name was mentioned in a document, it was either "wife of Joseph" or as "Hannah Joseph." A widow would have been called simply Widow Joseph." Synagogue records generally followed these patterns, and even tombstones might occasionally leave out the "ben" in the sequence of son + father name.
Books
