By Rabbi Doug Donelizko Slotnick, Special to JTNews
One of the most delightful aspects of being Jewish is the frequent realization that what we take for granted needs to be explored and examined. So it is when we explore our family histories. The last names — surnames — we bear are not meaningless, are not just strings of odd letters. All of our surnames mean something: they have a history, a rationale.
For our purposes, I will speak about the Pale of Settlement, the bounded area from the Baltic to the Black Seas, where the Russian Empire required 19th-century Jews to live. Many of our families originate from that area.
Between roughly 1790–1830, the Russian czar required Jews to adopt surnames. Until then, most Jews used only the traditional shem kodesh, or Hebrew name (“X son of Y” or “X daughter of Y”), or the kinnui, a secular, everyday name a person used. Those two names could be, but were not necessarily, the same.
At the end of the 18th century, most Russian Jews were referred to by the given name and a patronymic (father’s name); for example, Itsuk Abramovich — Isaac son of Abram. This suggests there were very few true surnames at the time; the ones that did exist were rare and confined to specific geographical areas.
The adoption of surnames was a slow process. Since they were rarely used, and only in interaction with a crown census or tax official, it was not uncommon for families to simply forget their surnames. This may seem odd, but it is a good example of how insular those Jewish communities were — identification within the community often mattered more than how a person was identified to the outside world.
Equally amusing is the very real story of what happened when families had surnames that were too common.
In post-czarist folklore, Rabinovich appears to be the most common Jewish surname. This consideration is illustrated in almost all post-czarist Jewish jokes, where the main character is named Rabinovich. For instance: a tourist approaches an apartment building in Odessa and asks a woman who lives there, “How can I find the apartment where the Shapiro family lives?”
The woman answers, “Yell Rabinovich! The only window that will not open will be the window of Shapiro’s apartment.”
The most common Jewish surnames in Minsk in 1907 were Levin, Livshits, Kagan, Kaplan, Epshtejn, Shapiro, Fridman, Feldman, Rabinovich, and Gorelik. Where do these names come from? It has been suggested that there are nine types of Russian-Jewish surnames. Here are some examples of each.
1) Kohen or Levite (priestly origin): Kagan, Kogan, Kaganovich, Kaplan, Kaplansky, Katz, Katzman, Levy, Levin, Loewy, Levitin, Segal, Segalchik.
2) Rabbinical (names that stem from dynastic families of rabbis): Rabbinical surnames are fascinating, in that some go back to the 14th century. From place names: Auerbach, Bachrach, Bloch, Epstein, Frankel, Horowitz, Landau, Livshits, Rapoport. From Hebrew origin: Ashkenazi, Jaffe, Shor, Margolis. One-of-a-kind: Rabinovich.
3) Toponyms (place names): The place name, in almost all circumstances, appears with a suffix: Ovrutskij, from Ovruch; Borodotskij, from Brodok; Brotskij, from Brodsk; Kozlovskij, from Kozlovshchina; Sadovskij, from Sadovichi; Lyubelskij, from Lublin; Morinskij, from Morintsy; Lipaer, from Lipa; Pirozhkiev, from Pirozhki; Dibner, from Dubno. You get the idea: Bobruskin, Briskin, Gluskin.
4) Names from masculine given (first) names: these names are referred to as colloquial names, kinnuim (Hebrew) or rufnemen (Yiddish), as opposed to shem kodesh, the given holy name. Examples: Bunim, Fajvush, Girsh (or Hirsh), Sobel.
5) Names from feminine given names: Sora, Khaya, Bejla, Golda, Charna, Shejndel, Mindel, Brajndel.
6) Occupational surnames: Examples ending with -nik or -ar, refer to a person working in a particular field: Mednik (copper), Zlotnik (gold), Molochnik (milk), Muchnik (flour), Shapochnik (cap), Tandetnik (old clothes), Tsigelnik (bricks), Plotnik (carpenter), Sapozhnik (shoes), Yablochnik (apples), Brazhnik (beer), Sklyar (glass), Aptekar (pharmacy), Korchmar (innkeeper), Pekar (bakery), Rybak (fish), Muzykant (music), Nudler (needlework), Beder (bath), Beker (baker).
7) Personal characteristics: This list suggests that some names were given by others: Borodach (bearded), Khiger (lame), Ryzhij (red-haired), Orentlikher (honest), Veselyj (cheerful), Sirota (orphan), Kholstoj (unmarried), Dvukhbabnyj (having two women), Shtejnhauz (stone house), Libling (beloved), Beznos (noseless), Bezzub (toothless), Zalyapin (dirty), Zatuchin (corpulent), Khrapko (snorer), Vakhun (moaner).
8) Artificial names: Bober (beaver), Koza (nannygoat), Gekht (pike), Kachka (duck), Shperling (sparrow), Pomarants (orange), Verba (willow), Yaglom (diamond), Gorfunkel (carbunkle).
9) Acronyms: it seems that very few other peoples use acronyms as names. Some examples: pronunciations of Morenu, Harav Rabi, (for “our teacher, the rabbi”): Mahar, Magar, Magaram, Magarshak. Names beginning with R, for “rabbi”: Rajvid, Ralbe, Rambakh, Rif, Rits. Names beginning with B, R, for “son of rabbi”: Barag, Baral, Barash, Bardak. Names beginning with B, H, R. or B, G, R, for “son of the rabbi X”: Bagarad, Bagarash, Bagrak. Names beginning with Khar, acronym for Khatan Rabi, for “son-in-law of the rabbi”: Kharad, Kharash, Kharpak, Kharmats.
I hope that this has served as an interesting introduction to the subject. I am deeply indebted to Alexander Beider, linguist and name researcher, for the research this article is based upon.
What’s your name?
Would you like to find out more about your own name? The Jewish Genealogical Society of Washington State meets monthly with a program, on the second Monday of each month at 7 p.m. at the Stroum Jewish Community Center. Beginners welcome. JGSWS will hold a Roots Fair on Sept. 14, from 12-4 p.m., at the JCC’s Mercer Island facility. Everyone welcome. Contact Myra Rothenberg at 425-827-5025 for more details.