2. How did many of these ethnic-sounding family names originate?

In Eastern Europe, until the early 19th century, most of the Jews from countries captured by Napoleon, Russia, Poland, and Germany, were ordered to get surnames for tax purposes.

After Napoleon's defeat, many Jews dropped these names and returned to "son of" names such as Mendelsohn, Jacobson, and Levinson.

During the late 18th and 19th centuries, Jews were once more ordered to take surnames. In Austria, Jews were made to take names in the late 1700s. In Poland in 1821. In Russia in 1844.

In general, there were five types of names. People had to pay for their choice of names. The poor were assigned names. The five types:

  1. Names descriptive of head of household such as HOCH (tall), KLEIN (small), COHEN (rabbi), and SHEIN (good looking).

  2. Names describing or related to occupations: HOLTZ (wood), SCHNEIDER (tailor), FISHER (fish), and GOLDSCHMIDT (goldsmith).

  3. Names from city of residence or country of origin such as BERLIN, FRANKFURTER, POLLACK (Polish), and DEUTSCH (German).

  4. Bought names such as GLUCK (luck), KOENIG (king) and ROSENBERG (rose mountain).

  5. Assigned names *usually undesirable) such as PLOTZ (to die), KLUTZ (clumsy), and BILLIG (cheap).


The famous ROTHSchild name has an interesting origin: Where they lived, the Jews were identified by colored shields in front of their houses. There was a red shield, which became 'rot shield', then Rothschild.