In I got It!
For 50 Gilden - Shuster, for 300 Gilden – Kluger..
The family names of Diaspora Jews were also influenced by the financial conditions our ancestors lived in about two hundred years ago.
25/10/2009 10:00
In 1787 (5537) Franz Joseph, the Caesar of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1765/5525 – 1790/5550) decreed that the Jews in his lands must have family names. This law came about due to the progressive times then prevailing in Europe, that required the population to have more specific identification. The law stated a fixed date for the Jews to report to the government offices and register the family name they had chosen. It was forbidden for Jews to bear well-known family names, or names from the Torah.
Families that had the resources to bribe government officials were able to obtain more honorable names, such as Kluger (clever), Reich (rich) etc. Others received family names according to their trade, and those that were unable to bribe the officials – received degrading names.
Despite the fact that already in the tenth century we find the use of family names among Jews in France, Italy, Spain and North Africa; in central Europe the designation of family names only began in the 16th century, by families of good standing. It was a sign of distinguished status.
Ethiopian Jews didn’t use family names until the twentieth century.
Today, there are about twenty thousand Jewish family names, some of them made up of non-Jewish definitions of various occupations. For example, ‘Teischler’ is a carpenter in German; ‘Attar’ is a pharmacist in Arabic. A considerable amount of names are derived from parents’ names and are influenced by their origin, such as ‘Avarmian’ - ‘the son of Avraham’ in Persian; ‘Abramowitz’ or ‘Abramski’ denotes the same thing but is used by those of Polish descent.
Name endings also indicate their origin. ‘yan’ comes from Persia; ‘ski’ originates in Russia (although there are Polish names that end with ‘ski’;) ‘yuf’ is Bucharian; ‘shvili’ is Georgian’; ‘witz’ – Polish, and the endings ‘stein’, ‘man’ and ‘berg’ originated in Germany.
Families that had the resources to bribe government officials were able to obtain more honorable names, such as Kluger (clever), Reich (rich) etc. Others received family names according to their trade, and those that were unable to bribe the officials – received degrading names.
Despite the fact that already in the tenth century we find the use of family names among Jews in France, Italy, Spain and North Africa; in central Europe the designation of family names only began in the 16th century, by families of good standing. It was a sign of distinguished status.
Ethiopian Jews didn’t use family names until the twentieth century.
Today, there are about twenty thousand Jewish family names, some of them made up of non-Jewish definitions of various occupations. For example, ‘Teischler’ is a carpenter in German; ‘Attar’ is a pharmacist in Arabic. A considerable amount of names are derived from parents’ names and are influenced by their origin, such as ‘Avarmian’ - ‘the son of Avraham’ in Persian; ‘Abramowitz’ or ‘Abramski’ denotes the same thing but is used by those of Polish descent.
Name endings also indicate their origin. ‘yan’ comes from Persia; ‘ski’ originates in Russia (although there are Polish names that end with ‘ski’;) ‘yuf’ is Bucharian; ‘shvili’ is Georgian’; ‘witz’ – Polish, and the endings ‘stein’, ‘man’ and ‘berg’ originated in Germany.
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