Hello Professor Abramson, thank you so much for this very insightful video! In my ongoing research of my Jewish ancestors who primarily lived in the Moselle department of France, I discovered somewhat similar patterns related to a few of those ancestors having different names in various family tree sources and even in certain translated copies of French civil records from around the early-mid 1800’s that also may seem to indicate this. Two potential ancestors that very much come to mind for me regarding the specific name changes from around this time period include my 3rd great-grandmother Breinlen who became “Brunette” and my 4th-great grandmother Kelschen who became “Catherine”. Many thanks once again and I hope that you’re doing very well!
The first Jews to use family names the way non Jews do were the Spanish Jews, long before it was legally compulsory to do so. In Spain, this obligation was established by royal decree long before the same was decreed in other nations.
The Napoleonic legal system swept also other very old, ancient actually, local traditions for bearing surnames. My ancestors were from the Pyrenees, and they would have a first name and a 'name of the house', literally the name of the estate they were living. With Napoleon that ended, but parallel to the legal obligation, people in the region kept the tradition of the name of the house. In the highlands the official documents even registered both the surname and the name of the house up until the end of the 19th century.
In Sweden, and I think much of the Nordics, proper surnames were rare until the 19th century. Mostly patronymals were used, in some provinces, the name of the farm was placed before the first name. Gradually, the patronymals become fixed (hence all the names ending with -son) or replaced by proper surnames during the course of the 19th and into the early 20th century. So the phenomenon is broader, and probably related to population growth and urbanization, making these changes necessary. On Iceland, they still use them of course.
Fascinating! Over here in Belgium up until a few decades ago ,one would have to choose a name that was in the book. Today it’s abandoned ,and the most common given name is Mohammed. (The Europeans disposed of Yankel and Hudel and got Mohammed and Fatima instead). The ‘Consistorie’ set up by Napoleon is still the liaison between the state and its Jews. Every Kehillah (few hundred members ) has a right through the consistorie ,for a government paid salary ,to hire a Rabbi ,Chazzan and Shamash.
Napoleon also required the taking of permanent surnames in the Netherlands a few years later. My ancestors went from patronymic surnames to fixed surnames in a matter of months.
Some people supposedly out of protest deliberately took ridiculous surnames like "Naaktgeboren" [born naked] or "Clooten" [testicles, used in Dutch much like the f-word in English or "put**n" in French] --- their descendants are now stuck with then. [Actually, I just looked up Naaktgeboren, and it seems it's a corruption of German "Nachgeboren", born after the father's death --- the Latinized version Posthumus is also a surname. So it may be a "just so" story.]
@@ancienbelge I also heard that story and wondered about Posthumus too. I haven't seen the others you mentioned so maybe it isn't true, or they changed it back.
As for surnames: in Germany, Jews were allowed to use certain biblical names, for example, Ascher, Levi, and Cohen as legitimate surnames, and in many cases partonomic names such as Abramzohn, Hirschzohn and so on. My family is from Germany from both sides. My mother's maiden name is de-Levie, and my father's surname is Levy. and his mother's surname is Cohen.
france appears more enlightened and stable than the german states where i understand there was a lot of corruption. jews got animal names if they weren't willing to pay for beautiful names evoking nature -- thal is valley berg is mountain, rosen is rose, blumen is flower. of course katz or edel aren't unattractive animal names, but i don't know the further history of this.
You probably discussed this in another video about Jews in the Habsburg Empire, but Joseph II of Austria beat Napoleon to it by roughly decades --- he mandated fixed (and German-sounding!) surnames already in a 1787 law.
I recall seeing an article about a similar decree put forth by the Austrian authorities upon the Yidden in Poland. Those decrees took effect piecemeal, depending on the locale and which of the Partitions of Poland made it fall under Austrian rule. Those decrees also forbade Jews to take (or maintain) a family name that was the same as one used by any noble family, which precluded most town names, or at least towns that had local nobility. So, for example, the descendants of R' Hershele Charif, rabbi of Halberstadt during the reign of Augustus (of Saxony, c.f. Marcus Lehman's "The Royal Resident", historically inaccurate as it is) were also known as Halberstadt, until the various family name decrees. Thus R' Chaim, the son of R' Aryeh Leib Halberstadt of Tarnogrod, was forced to change his family name to Halberstam, probably under this 1808 decree. (By 1808, Galicia was already under French Imperial rule, I think.) Several of his relatives, uncles and cousins, had already changed their names to variants of Halberstadt under the previous decrees, under Austrian (or Holy Roman?) Imperial rule. Not all chose Halberstam, though some did.
Of particular interest to me, was the comment about using a Matrilineal name when praying for healing. I am wondering if there are other customs of that sort you could expand upon?
I really enjoyed this presentation. I'd like to hear about the naming degree that was enacted in roughly the same time in the Austrian Empire under Joseph II. I know that we're doing Bordeaux now but maybe in the future. I heard that in Hungary the late comers were given black, white, big and small...Schwartz, Weiss, Klein, and Gross. Anything to that? Anyway, have a fun cruise.
Thank you again, Dr. Abramson, for a most interesting presentation on how the Jews of France first came to adopt family surnames. I have two questions: First, I understand that one of Napoleon’s motivations for requiring the Jews to have last names was his desire to liberate France from domination by the Pope and the Catholic Church. The influence of the Catholic Church was so powerful, I understand, that in the 15th and 16th centuries Catholic Kings slaughtered tens of thousands of Protestants as heretics. In fact, it was a capital offense simply to own a Bible that was not in Latin. There is a famous story that Napoleon rejected the Pope’s offer to crown him, on the theory that a Pope was in no way superior to a head of government. His actions toward the Jews were consistent with the same principle - that all French subjects were to be included in the new Republic even if they were not Roman Catholic. Is my understanding correct? Second, I understand that Napoleon’s name decree established a custom that was rapidly adopted by Jewish communities throughout Europe, without official action by other European countries. Is this true, or did other European governments create naming laws for the Jews similar to that of Napoleon?
intreresting....I wanted to find out about Napoleon and what he did just a few days ago - I heard conflicting reports,so I thought I read up on it - he turns out to be one of the great emancipator of Jewry among instituting other enlightened ideas to the masses .....
Et pourtant... in goyish Protestant communities there was no shortage of people called Rachel, Sarah, Suzanne, Elie, Elysée, David, Jonathan, Abraham, Jacob, Daniel or Osée, although this declined in the 18th century due to persecution by the Catholic establishment.
More interesting to me is Napoleon’s clear rehearsal of the fact that what made you Jewish was that you “followed the Hebrew Religion”. And the corollary that you could stop being Jewish by converting to Christianity. It highlights …clarifies…the idea that the persecution of Jews was not about “race” at all (everyone could see Jews were Europeans ) but their heretical religion. Let’s remember there were things in France worthy of the name “pogrom” directed at Protestants or other religious sects like the “Cathars.
Could anyone comment on my Swiss surname Nussbaum, which means nut tree in German. There are many Jewish and Mennonite people with this surname. With antisemitism the way it was, were Jews allowed to pick currently used gentile surnames? Wondering if they were converts?
in Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria most gentile family names derive from house names or farm names. So the house had a name long before and the people living there derived their family name from the house in which they were living (often for generations). Nussbaum sounds like such a house or farm name. Like: in which house are you living? The one with the nut tree. Up to the 19th century and early 20th century the name was almost exclusively written with the letter ß (sz), hence Nußbaum. Only Switzerland wrote it with ss instead (for a very pragmatic reason, they simply hadn't enough buttons on their typwriters to cover all German, French and Italian special signs and diacritics, so they dropped some).
@@carthac1 one addition: in older German context, nut is always walnut, not any other nuts. And a walnut tree is fine to have in your yard, because the leaves emit essential oil scents that keep insects away. The walnut trees also grow very tall and gives a nice shadow, so also bars and inns usually had one and people were sitting under it in summer time.
Hello Professor Abramson, thank you so much for this very insightful video! In my ongoing research of my Jewish ancestors who primarily lived in the Moselle department of France, I discovered somewhat similar patterns related to a few of those ancestors having different names in various family tree sources and even in certain translated copies of French civil records from around the early-mid 1800’s that also may seem to indicate this. Two potential ancestors that very much come to mind for me regarding the specific name changes from around this time period include my 3rd great-grandmother Breinlen who became “Brunette” and my 4th-great grandmother Kelschen who became “Catherine”. Many thanks once again and I hope that you’re doing very well!
The first Jews to use family names the way non Jews do were the Spanish Jews, long before it was legally compulsory to do so. In Spain, this obligation was established by royal decree long before the same was decreed in other nations.
Thank you once again for your insight into our history! Shalom!
The Napoleonic legal system swept also other very old, ancient actually, local traditions for bearing surnames. My ancestors were from the Pyrenees, and they would have a first name and a 'name of the house', literally the name of the estate they were living. With Napoleon that ended, but parallel to the legal obligation, people in the region kept the tradition of the name of the house. In the highlands the official documents even registered both the surname and the name of the house up until the end of the 19th century.
Interesting history Dr. Abramson. Thank you s always for your insight.
In Sweden, and I think much of the Nordics, proper surnames were rare until the 19th century. Mostly patronymals were used, in some provinces, the name of the farm was placed before the first name. Gradually, the patronymals become fixed (hence all the names ending with -son) or replaced by proper surnames during the course of the 19th and into the early 20th century. So the phenomenon is broader, and probably related to population growth and urbanization, making these changes necessary. On Iceland, they still use them of course.
Sephardic (from Iberia) Jews were the first European Jews who had adopted surnames centuries before Napoleon.
True. I guess it's because they were so integrated in society from the days the peninsula was ruled by the Arabs.
Fascinating!
Over here in Belgium up until a few decades ago ,one would have to choose a name that was in the book. Today it’s abandoned ,and the most common given name is Mohammed. (The Europeans disposed of Yankel and Hudel and got Mohammed and Fatima instead).
The ‘Consistorie’ set up by Napoleon is still the liaison between the state and its Jews. Every Kehillah (few hundred members ) has a right through the consistorie ,for a government paid salary ,to hire a Rabbi ,Chazzan and Shamash.
Glad I caught this. My family heralds from Bordeaux.
Napoleon also required the taking of permanent surnames in the Netherlands a few years later. My ancestors went from patronymic surnames to fixed surnames in a matter of months.
Some people supposedly out of protest deliberately took ridiculous surnames like "Naaktgeboren" [born naked] or "Clooten" [testicles, used in Dutch much like the f-word in English or "put**n" in French] --- their descendants are now stuck with then. [Actually, I just looked up Naaktgeboren, and it seems it's a corruption of German "Nachgeboren", born after the father's death --- the Latinized version Posthumus is also a surname. So it may be a "just so" story.]
My favorite Dutch surname from that era must be "Zondervan" [=without a "van"/from]
@@ancienbelge I also heard that story and wondered about Posthumus too. I haven't seen the others you mentioned so maybe it isn't true, or they changed it back.
What about surname SECRET?
As much as I love Abrahamson's videos on Jewish history, I am appreciative the way he explains Jewish history and their culture.
As for surnames: in Germany, Jews were allowed to use certain biblical names, for example, Ascher, Levi, and Cohen as legitimate surnames, and in many cases partonomic names such as Abramzohn, Hirschzohn and so on. My family is from Germany from both sides. My mother's maiden name is de-Levie, and my father's surname is Levy. and his mother's surname is Cohen.
france appears more enlightened and stable than the german states where i understand there was a lot of corruption. jews got animal names if they weren't willing to pay for beautiful names evoking nature -- thal is valley berg is mountain, rosen is rose, blumen is flower. of course katz or edel aren't unattractive animal names, but i don't know the further history of this.
You probably discussed this in another video about Jews in the Habsburg Empire, but Joseph II of Austria beat Napoleon to it by roughly decades --- he mandated fixed (and German-sounding!) surnames already in a 1787 law.
I recall seeing an article about a similar decree put forth by the Austrian authorities upon the Yidden in Poland. Those decrees took effect piecemeal, depending on the locale and which of the Partitions of Poland made it fall under Austrian rule. Those decrees also forbade Jews to take (or maintain) a family name that was the same as one used by any noble family, which precluded most town names, or at least towns that had local nobility.
So, for example, the descendants of R' Hershele Charif, rabbi of Halberstadt during the reign of Augustus (of Saxony, c.f. Marcus Lehman's "The Royal Resident", historically inaccurate as it is) were also known as Halberstadt, until the various family name decrees. Thus R' Chaim, the son of R' Aryeh Leib Halberstadt of Tarnogrod, was forced to change his family name to Halberstam, probably under this 1808 decree. (By 1808, Galicia was already under French Imperial rule, I think.) Several of his relatives, uncles and cousins, had already changed their names to variants of Halberstadt under the previous decrees, under Austrian (or Holy Roman?) Imperial rule. Not all chose Halberstam, though some did.
Thank you Professor Abramson for another incredibly informative lesson. Shabbat Shalom
Of particular interest to me, was the comment about using a Matrilineal name when praying for healing. I am wondering if there are other customs of that sort you could expand upon?
I really enjoyed this presentation. I'd like to hear about the naming degree that was enacted in roughly the same time in the Austrian Empire under Joseph II. I know that we're doing Bordeaux now but maybe in the future. I heard that in Hungary the late comers were given black, white, big and small...Schwartz, Weiss, Klein, and Gross. Anything to that? Anyway, have a fun cruise.
Thank you again, Dr. Abramson, for a most interesting presentation on how the Jews of France first came to adopt family surnames. I have two questions:
First, I understand that one of Napoleon’s motivations for requiring the Jews to have last names was his desire to liberate France from domination by the Pope and the Catholic Church. The influence of the Catholic Church was so powerful, I understand, that in the 15th and 16th centuries Catholic Kings slaughtered tens of thousands of Protestants as heretics. In fact, it was a capital offense simply to own a Bible that was not in Latin. There is a famous story that Napoleon rejected the Pope’s offer to crown him, on the theory that a Pope was in no way superior to a head of government. His actions toward the Jews were consistent with the same principle - that all French subjects were to be included in the new Republic even if they were not Roman Catholic. Is my understanding correct?
Second, I understand that Napoleon’s name decree established a custom that was rapidly adopted by Jewish communities throughout Europe, without official action by other European countries. Is this true, or did other European governments create naming laws for the Jews similar to that of Napoleon?
It affected non-Jews as well (e.g., in the French-occupied Netherlands, where fixed surnames had not yet been adopted in some areas).
Your videos are always very interesting and informative. Thank you!
What law passed around 1947 required every other Jewish boy to be named Jeffrey? 😃
Fascinating. Thank you.
I never called a Jew by the name of Hank before,
intreresting....I wanted to find out about Napoleon and what he did just a few days ago - I heard conflicting reports,so I thought I read up on it - he turns out to be one of the great emancipator of Jewry among instituting other enlightened ideas to the masses .....
Et pourtant... in goyish Protestant communities there was no shortage of people called Rachel, Sarah, Suzanne, Elie, Elysée, David, Jonathan, Abraham, Jacob, Daniel or Osée, although this declined in the 18th century due to persecution by the Catholic establishment.
Can you do a video on Adolphe Cremieux please?
waiting on Jews of Central Asia …
More interesting to me is Napoleon’s clear rehearsal of the fact that what made you Jewish was that you “followed the Hebrew Religion”. And the corollary that you could stop being Jewish by converting to Christianity. It highlights …clarifies…the idea that the persecution of Jews was not about “race” at all (everyone could see Jews were Europeans ) but their heretical religion. Let’s remember there were things in France worthy of the name “pogrom” directed at Protestants or other religious sects like the “Cathars.
We need to go back to 13 months of 28 days each. 🙏💯🔥🔥🔥
Well done, especially interesting now with the Middle East problems. We all must differentiate evil politics from the general population.
10-Q w/ all Respect, Serenely NHG.
Fascinating
Garcia Gary Williams Ronald Lopez Deborah
Could anyone comment on my Swiss surname Nussbaum, which means nut tree in German. There are many Jewish and Mennonite people with this surname. With antisemitism the way it was, were Jews allowed to pick currently used gentile surnames? Wondering if they were converts?
in Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria most gentile family names derive from house names or farm names. So the house had a name long before and the people living there derived their family name from the house in which they were living (often for generations). Nussbaum sounds like such a house or farm name. Like: in which house are you living? The one with the nut tree.
Up to the 19th century and early 20th century the name was almost exclusively written with the letter ß (sz), hence Nußbaum. Only Switzerland wrote it with ss instead (for a very pragmatic reason, they simply hadn't enough buttons on their typwriters to cover all German, French and Italian special signs and diacritics, so they dropped some).
Thank you for your reply!
@@carthac1 one addition: in older German context, nut is always walnut, not any other nuts. And a walnut tree is fine to have in your yard, because the leaves emit essential oil scents that keep insects away. The walnut trees also grow very tall and gives a nice shadow, so also bars and inns usually had one and people were sitting under it in summer time.
🙏
To long for a short information
Does professor realises that he isn't a contestant in miss Israel pegent? His constant smiling is like someone giving a lecture on physics in nude.