Surnames of Georgian Jews: Historical and Linguistic Aspects (original) (raw)
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Typology and Linguistic Aspects of surnames of Jews in the Russian Empire
Chapters 2 & 3 of: Beider, Alexander. 2008. A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire (revised edition). Bergenfield (2008), NJ: Avotaynu., 2008
These chapters cover the following topics: (1) Types of surnames (rabbinical and other migrated from other areas, patronymic, metronymic, toponymic, occupational, nickname-based, Cohen/Levite origin, artificial); (2) Morphology of surnames: suffixes used, acronymic surnames; (3) Languages used and their peculiarities (Yiddish, Hebrew, Slavic, German; (4) Distortions of surnames; (5) normalization (Russification, Slavonization, Yiddishizing, Germanizing)
Dictionary of Jewish surnames from the Russian Empire : appendices
Appendices for: Beider, Alexander. 2008. A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire (revised edition). Bergenfield (2008), NJ: Avotaynu. , 2008
The following appendices are included here: (1) Hyphenated surnames (2) Most common Jewish surnames in the Russian Empire & USSR (3) Spelling changes (4) Suffixes found in Jewish surnames from the Russian Empire (5) Stress position in surnames (6) Main migrations of Jews internal to the Russian Empire
History of Jewish Names in Eastern Europe and Surnames in the Russian Empire
Chapters 1, 4, 5 of Beider, Alexander. 2008. A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire (revised edition). Bergenfield (2008), NJ: Avotaynu. , 2008
These three chapters cover the historical aspects of names: Chapter 1: History of Jewish Names in Eastern Europe, with sections (a) Names in Hebrew Sources before the End of the 18th Century (b) Names in Slavic Sources before the End of the 18th Century (c) General Aspects of the Surname Adoption by Jews of the Russian Empire (d) Surname Changes in Russia and USSR Chapter 4: Adoption of surnames in various regions (Courland, Lithuania, Belorussia, Ukraine, Bessarabia) Chapter 5: Jewish surnames and Gentile surnames in Eastern Europe, with sections about surnames specific to Jews, shared by Jews and Slavic or German Christians, surnames borrowed by Jews from Christians
Names of People: Surnames in Pre-Modern Europe
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HEBREW LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS, vol. 2, pp. 791-795, 2013
The paper discusses the Jewish surnames based on Hebrew that were created mainly in Ashkenazic communities of Eastern and Central Europe before mid-19th century. The large group was created in the Russian Empire. A few examples are also provided of Hebrew names used by Sephardic Jews.
The Notion of ‘Jewish Surnames’
Journal of Jewish Languages, 2018
This article discusses the notion of ‘Jewish surnames,’ considering it to be synonymous to the expression ‘surnames borne by Jews.’ This can be particularly helpful if we want the definition to add real value for the search of etymologies. The article describes most important peculiarities of Jewish surnames, categories of names that are exclusively Jewish, and various cases when a surname is shared by both Jews and non-Jews. It shows that certain alternative definitions of the notion of ‘Jewish surnames’ (such as surnames found in all Jewish communities, surnames used by Jews only, surnames based on specifically Jewish linguistic elements) either have internal inconsistencies or are useless and sometimes misleading for the scientific analysis of the etymologies of these surnames.
Surnames of Inhabitans of Lidzbark District (1500-1772)
The aim of the paper was to collect and to present the fullest possible an-throponymical material from the Lidzbark district in the period of 1500-1772, and to reveal the process of surname development in this area, focusing on accompany-ing linguistic circumstances. In total, a few thousand surnames were excerpted from over 150 manuscripts and 17 printed sources. The surnames were semanti-cally and structurally analysed. On the basis of this analysis, it was found that in the 16th-18th centuries, a stabilised naming system existed in the region . The an-throponyms presented in the study are officially used personal names. Structures without surnames were already uncommon, though there were some sparse specific descriptions found, such as Nobilis Domina Ursula Matthia a Pakusch ab Adekamp hone∫ta coniunx 1618, Nobilis D. Sigismundus a Nadram Capitaney Heilsbergen 1667 Rogóż, Michael v. Preuck alias von der Laute Marscalkus 1556-1565. Occa-sionally, the role of an identifier was played by the name of the occupation (e.g. Socio Adamo 1587, Molitor Casparus 1587, Georgius scultetus 1587, Leonardus Scriba 1587) or the specification of a place of residence combined with a given name. But the combination of a given name and a surname was a customarily es-tablished means of identification. According to the method of formation and the structure, surnames have been classified as simple (morphologically underived) and derived (by word-formation or inflection processes). The majority of anthroponyms are simple forms, created by transfer of their etymological base into the category of surnames, without any significant changes to their structure, e.g. Sommerfeld from the locality name Sommerfeld, Rachel from the given name Rachel, Rogala from the name of the coat of arms Rogala. Morphological derivation proved less effective in the collected material than transposition. Names regarded as derived were usually formed by adding a formant, which typically had a structural or patronymic function. The most productive suffixes include Polish: -ski, its derivatives (-owski, -ewski, -iński, -yński, -ecki, -acki, -icki), -icz and their compound variants (-ewicz, -owicz), Ger-man: -er, -mann. In the area of the Lidzbark district, surnames were quite rarely created by conversion, alternation of suffixes or reduction of an element of the stem. Surnames were divided according to their etymological basis into three main groups: - from anthroponyms, e.g. Benedict, Kilian, Materna; Grod, Radek, Rosz, Rudel-hoff, Reinholdt; - from toponyms, e.g. Jabłonowski < Jabłonowo, Szymanowski < Szymanowo, Galicki < Gality, Halicki < Halicz, Częstochowian < Częstochowa, Dąbrowian < Dąbrowa; - from names of occupations, e.g. Bosman, Cześnik, Kołodziej, Botnik, Furman, Gertner, Kesler, Möller, Schmidt, Schneider, Weber, Zimmermann. Additionally, there was a group of homonymic names, which was made up of names of originally heterogenic scopes of meaning, which did not fit explicitly into any of the other groups, and such that could be created in various ways, e.g. by suffixal derivation or by transfer. The genesis of about a dozen of surnames could not be satisfactorily explained and they were considered to be vague formations. Applying the criterion of origin, the surnames were divided into Polish, Ger-man, Prussian, Latin and hybrid ones. Genetically German surnames form the pre-vailing group. However, it should be emphasized that they were used by persons inhabiting the then area of Poland who considered themselves, and who were con-sidered, as autochthons. This thesis does not use the term foreign surnames, since German or Prussian formed a significant element of the Warmian ethnic blend of cultures. Domination of German anthroponyms was also influenced by the fact that this was an official language, in which clerks recorded a significant number of names – according to their pronunciation and German spelling rules. The sur-names under analysis were subject to various adaptation processes: Polonization, Germanization and Latinization. While distinguishing and discussing individual groups of names, this aspect of word formation is emphasized. Additionally, notes concerning linguistic substitution also contain dictionary entries. A significant role in giving a name its final shape, besides natural linguistic adaptation, was also played by associations as well as by phonetic assimilations and simplifications. The material included in this dissertation can be used in genealogical and lin-guistic research: onomastic, historical, linguistic and dialectological. The names collected also provide indirect information about the history of settlement and cul-ture of this region. Of course, the thesis does not exhaust the entire issue and fur-ther studies on this interesting subject of Warmian anthroponymy are necessary.
Proper Names in Georgian, 2024
Proper names in Georgian constitute a class of nouns with morphosyntactic properties in some ways distinct from all others. This paper will survey the function, grammatical distribution and origin of proper names in modern Georgian: their paradigmatic properties, the affects they have on agreement, and their role in binding and anaphora.
History, Adoption, and Regulation of Jewish Surnames in the Russian Empire
Surname DNA Journal, 2014
Analysis of the formation of surnames by the Jewish population of the 19th century Russian Empire. Description of the cultural and legal context of Ashkenazi Jewish surnames in Russia with examples taken from census records. Provides insight to genealogists on the legally mandated creation of different surnames within individual families followed by a period of relative surname stability into the 20th century. Surname derivation from toponyms with the "sky" suffix were most common followed by patronymics with the "vich" suffix and then derivation from occupations or nicknames. Between 1880 and 1924, over two million Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews immigrated to America from the Russian Empire, where repeated pogroms made life untenable. They came from Jewish diaspora communities in the Russian Pale of Settlement (the territory where Jews were permitted to live in the Russian Empire, encompassing modern Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova), the vast majority of them entering America through the Port of New York, at Ellis Island. Many of these Jewish immigrants had strange, foreign-sounding surnames, very different from the surnames of their American-born children and grandchildren. How did these immigrants originally obtain their Russian or Eastern European surnames? Where did they get them from, and how long did they have them? When, where, and why were they changed? That is the topic of this review article, and some of the questions that it is intended to address. There has always been a certain mystique associated with Jewish surnames. Part of this mystique is due to the fact that many Ashkenazi Jews, whose ancestors immigrated to America, do not know how or where their surname originated, or even what they mean. They may be vaguely aware that their American surname was changed from a different ancestral surname in the old country, but the origin and history of their ancestral
Genealogy, 2023
This paper outlines a study of surnames used by various Jewish groups in the Land of Israel for Ashkenazic Jews, prior to the First Aliyah (1881), and for Sephardic and Oriental Jews up to the end of the 1930s. For the 16th–18th centuries, the surnames of Jews who lived in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron can be mainly extracted from the rabbinic literature. For the 19th century, by far the richest collection is provided by the materials of the censuses organized by Moses Montefiore (1839–1875). For the turn of the 20th century, data for several additional censuses are available, while for the 1930s, we have access to the voter registration lists of Sephardic and Oriental Jews of Jerusalem, Safed, and Haifa. All these major sources were used in this paper to address the following questions: the use or non-use of hereditary family names in various Jewish groups, the geographic roots of Jews that composed the Yishuv, as well as the existence of families continuously present in the Land of Israel for many generations.