Appendix talk:Jewish surnames
I don't think this is the newest version. Please revive all of the edits, complete version, fast!
And besides, List of Jewish surnames (the former place in Wikipedia) was made for Wikipedia, so this style (Wiktionary) is not better.
Does Scherer is?
- Suárez means son to Suero, being Suero a phased out medieval personal name (for instance, Suero de Quiñones). Same for Juárez, from the the outdated script Xuárez, I think.
This list is full of dupes and unclassifieds
[edit]Please delete or move items out of the last 2 miscellaneous categories to where they belong, if you are etymologically certain.
I have regularized gross category format, but this list is full of dupes and items out of alphabetical order as it seems to have been, necessarily, hand sorted, and many people who added names about which they were interested had no idea, it seems, where to put them. Pandelver 05:58, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
- Agreed! Still full of dupes and miscellaneous itens (such as meanings of names and random individuals with name). Needs to be cleaned up and sorted. --lemccbr 15 December 2016
Typography
[edit]would it be possible to agrre on a typography like the one I used in the section "Germanised or German surnames (Ashkenazic) with "meaning" in German"? otherwise this article appears quite choatic to me..--Der Spion 15:03, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
- Not sure what you mean by typography, do you mean "formatting"? --Mglovesfun (talk) 15:31, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
General bewilderment
[edit]What's a "Jewish surname"? One that's predominantly used by Jews? By at least one Jewish family? I see no information or links regarding a definition of this term, especially as opposed to other surnames.
The notion of a "Jewish surname" is misguided. Sephardic Jews have used surnames for a millennium; and most of the surnames they use are simply Portugese or Spanish surnames.
Before 1788 (when the Hapsburg emperor decreed that Jews should take surnames), many rabbinic dynasties used surnames, typically toponyms, to identify their "brand" of scholarship. But the large majority of people with surnames like HALBERSTADT, LANDSBERGER, DEUTSCH, PAPPENHEIM, etc. are not Jewish, nor descended from Jews, let alone rabbis. Check dastelefonbuch.de for the number of people with a given surname (and a land line) in Germany today. It's unlikely that more than a few of them are Jewish.
We don't learn when or why Jews took surnames at all, or what restrictions were placed on their choices.
Before the late 18thC, many Jews used surnames, again, often toponyms, for business purposes when traveling. Yet others turned their address into a surname, as in Frankfurt, where many Jews named themselves after the sign on their house: ROTHSCHILD, GANS, OCHS, GRÜNHUT, STRAUSS, etc. THey needed to do this because the local Jewish community was too large for patronymics to suffice.
Most German Jews chose surnames much like those of their Gentile neighbors. The most common surname among German Jews was MEYER (with spelling variations). MEYER (with variations) also happens to be the most common surname among German Gentiles. Where do we find the name MEYER in this appendix? Why, under "Eastern European Other Surnames," of course!
The list of oddities and inconsistencies is long. CHAYATT/HAYATT/etc. appears under "Germanized surnames."
Why are notable individuals who have a particular surname listed? They may be examples, but they're not themselves surnames, and there's no evidence tying them to the definition and explanation given for that name. Some entries are simply irrelevant, e.g., Emil von Rezniček, where "probably Czech Christian origin" is added to emphasize the pointlessness of its inclusion.
Some derivations are wrong or incomplete. LIFSCHITZ (with variants) may come from the Upper Silesian town of Leobschütz, but more likely from the Czech town of Liběšice.
Why should BIEBER be "Yiddish-derived"? It's a common German name based on a common German word, and was used by German Jews as early as 1690. In general, the distinction between "Yiddish-derived" and other Germanic surnames is unexplained and inconsistent.
Given that there is no such thing as a "Jewish surname" per se, I recommend deleting this mishmosh. RuggieroAllegro (talk) 16:11, 26 August 2024 (UTC)