Review of Historical Implications of Jewish Surnames in the Old Kingdom of Romania by Alexander Avram (original) (raw)

Surnames of Romanian origin in the Hungarian surname stock

The topic this paper has set out to explore wished to yield some insights into one chapter of the Romanian-Hungarian historic, linguistic and onomastic contacts from the point of view of current Hungarian research. Its topic is based on the representative historic and current onomastic sources: the presence, the history and the distribution of surnames of Romanian linguistic origin in the Hungarian surname stock. The main focus are three specific surnames (Árgyelán, Marosán, Moldován), discussing the presence, changes, distribution and variants of these names in present-day Hungary and the territory of the historic Hungarian Kingdom and Transylvania.

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.

Language contact effects in historical Hungarian and Romanian personal names

In the multilingual Carpathian Basin the language systems influence name-giving, resulting in the emergence of interferential properties in name usage. These characteristics are found where languages come into contact, such as on language borders. The main aim of this paper is to provide an examination of name contact phenomena emerging from Hungarian and Romanian connections. My source is the Atlas of Historical Surnames of Hungary (AHSH 1715 and 1720). One of the great advantages of this reference book is that the organic “unity” of personal names in the Carpathian Basin can be represented on maps in relation to how name systems of different languages affected each other. This study discusses how an important source of data—the earliest tax censuses—can be used to trace certain phenomena that arose due to how names were recorded.

Onomastic analysis of the origins of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe

There is abundant literature treating the origins of Jews in Slavic countries, in the region that is designated in Jewish medieval literature by the biblical term Canaan. 1 Unfortunately, due to the extreme paucity of documented sources, that literature is largely polemical. With a lack of direct historical proof, the authors often construct general theories derived from the analysis of particular aspects of Jewish life. The analysis of personal names used by Jews in the region in question represents one of the most powerful tools in this domain. It can corroborate or contradict various conjectures concerning the origins of Jews in different areas. The aim of this paper is to provide a detailed analysis of given names used by Jews in Slavic countries of Central Europe (West Canaan) and Eastern (East Canaan) before the 16th century. The data from the following centuries will be considered only in order to clarify some features for which the available sources from previous centuries are insufficient. Any discussion of South Slavic countries is purposely left out: the roots of the Jewish communities there are different from those discussed here and they are beyond the scope of the present article. Our discussion will be focused on the inventory of given names and their historical aspects. The conclusions about the origins of Jews in Slavic countries that can be made on the basis of the analysis of this inventory will be treated in detail.

Surname changes in Hungary: researches and their onomastic conclusions

2008

The paper investigates the differences between the surname stock that arose naturally in the community and the surname stock that was created artificially later via a legal procedure of surname changes. They are quite different in a number of respects: When were these surnames born? Who gives the name and to whom? Why is that name born? On what bases is the surname chosen? From what material (set of linguistic elements) and in what way is the surname formed? The most typical new surname types (semantics and morphology) are also presented here by examples and comments.

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)

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.