CONTENTS:

• CYRILLIC
  • Russian alphabet on an English keyboard
  • Transformation of Jewish Given Names in the USSR
• The English/Hebrew language
• POLISH Language
• YIDDISH Language
• Definition of Given Names
• Surnames
• JEWISH Personalities

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CYRILLIC

Dr. Roman N. Tunkel on his web site: http://www.geocities.com/ronatu offers as his own invention - "pseudorussian" font. He used it at least since 1995 while corresponds with Russian friends using an English keyboard and some imagination. For better simularity he suggests using the Arial font.

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Here is the Russian alphabet typed on an English keyboard (Arial font):

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the English language on Hebrew

On Thu, 04 Feb 1999 00:22:03 +0200 James Bennett writes:

I am constantly amazed by the havoc wrought by the English language on Hebrew and European Jewish names.

Example: Ya'akov in Hebrew is pronounced almost exactly the same in Russian, German, Polish and virtually every other European language: "Yakob", even though it's spelled Jacob or Jakob with a "J". But in English it's pronounced "Jaykob". This misleads the innocent American Jewish genealogical novice.

Let's take another name: Lewin. In America it's pronounced "Luu'in", and Lewkowicz from Poland is is "Lukowitz". Lewin in German has two origins: Levin, meaning from the tribe of Levi, and from the name Loeb, meaning Lion or Aryeh in Hebrew, or Leib in Yiddish.

Jews with the name Jungmann almost always became Youngman in America to avoid being called "Jzungman", and who would imagine that Jesselson is derived from the name Yosef>Yosel>Yesel, etc. Judelman, Judelson, etc are prouncued "Jewdelman, Jewdelson" but they should really be spelled and pronouced as if spelled with a "Y" because they are derived from Yehuda.

Another example: Moskowicz in Polish, means son of Moshe and is pronounce Moshkovich. In America it's pronounced Moskowitz, and most people would answer that it's derived from the Russian capital city.

In German the "S" is usually pronounced like the English "Z", which means that Selma should sound like Zelma, Samuel is Zamuel, Salomon is Zalomon, Selig is Zelig, etc. And also in German the "Z" is prounced like "TZ": Zimmerman, Zuckerman, Zell, Ziegler, are all pronounced as if with a "TZ".

All the above is vital if the genealogist is searching for relatives in Israel, where even in the transition to Hebrew, the spelling and pronunciation are parallel to the original European system, never to the English. Zuckerman is spelled with a "Tzadek" never with a "Zain", and Selig with a "Zain", not a "Samekh". The same is true when searching memorial books where the lists of Holocaust victims are written in Yiddish. Yiddish adds lots of extra vowels, but the consenants are very close to Hebrew.

So this a plea for awareness and sensitivity to proper pronunciation of names which will save much misunderstanding and wasted time. Jim Bennett, Haifa, bennett@coral.co.il

"A Dictionary of Jewish Names and History" - authored by Benzion Kaganoff and "The Complete Dictionary of English and Hebrew First Names" are two fine books with realistic naming information. Bear in mind though,that names of ancestors or the correct spellings of names is not scientific.

Notethat many times, old records spell a name one way, while shtetl records may spell (or even name the same person) differently. Much of these differences come about because of the specific location within a country. My surname, Margulis, is pronounced Mar goo liss in Ukraine, and Mar GO liss in Lithuania and Poland. This is one of the problems that a Jewish genealogical researcher faces, so therefore Mr. Daitch and Mr. Mokotoff created a Jewish version of the Soundex system. This system allows a search on every possible name that uses most of the same letters and will return every possible name it identifies with those letters.

Soundex - how to use and what it is, and other sites designed to assist you in either learning a language or giving you the necessary information to make your own translations and information about names http://www.jewishgen.org/

Soundex Calculator - for both Windows and Macintosh systems It also does Daitch-Mokotoff calculations, as well. http://home.att.net/~dfessler/

Using The Soundex System Rules - some of the basic rules for Soundex include: 1.) vowels don't exist. 2.) S and Z and c and ch and tz and ts are the same 3.) m and n are the same 4.) only the first four Soundex-recognized letters count as being a part of the name.

Yiddish Equivalents for English Names - there are NO Yiddish equivalents. There are Yiddish names, many of them based on Hebrew, Biblical or Rabbinic names.

When folks emigrated from their shtetl, or came to this country, they decided for a what ever reason, to change their name to be" more American". Sometimes they were able to find a rough, sound-alike or look-alike name. Rarely could their Yiddish name be translated into an exact English name. For Biblical names, for example, the English equivalents (e.g. Moses for Moshe) were available, but when you're Americanizing your name, why use one that lets people know you are Jewish? Most of the time, parents of a new born bay, would chose a name that had the same initial sound.

Foreign Name Cross-Referenced - This site allows you to cross-reference English given first names to their Czechoslovakian, German, Hungarian, Polish or equivalents http://www.rootsweb.com/~scoconee/names.html

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Polish Language

"Alternate Surnames in Russian Poland" - authored by Lauren B. Eisenberg Davis's JewishGen InfoFiles. It is about Polish names: http://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/pl-sname.txt

Polish Names For Each Month

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Yiddish Language

College Yiddish and Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary" both published by YIVO and Schocken Books and the YIVO website at: http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/yivo/

Russian Language Information: SKY - a Russian Toponymic Possessive Suffix = as in TurovSKY i.e. of Turov. In non-Slavic languages Swedish also has one akin to it: SvenSKA - i.e. Swedish. In both cases, it is an Indo-European element common in many Euro languages. Also German - ISCH, Italian - ESCO, etc.

Family Names: Check out this newsgroup alt.family-names You have to type in this URL in order to join this site, but you will find users posting names, birth dates and other information.

Family Tree of the Jewish People database. "Sometimes the surnames being researched contain a space i.e. Van Hoag or Del Gado. Looking for this type of name won't work in this database unless you replace the space with an underscore character ( _ ). Van_Hoag."

Given Name Definitions - Bunya and Bona JewishGen Digest Archives of October 17, 1999 http://jewishgen.org/

Given names were often changed when someone had a serious illness. I personally was given a second name of Harvey (English for Chai - life) when I was only a few months old as I had a serious health problem. This was done by my parents to "fool" the Angel of Death.

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Definition of Given Names

( Note there are no absolute Hebrew/Yiddish/English equivalents. "Many mistakenly think that if a Yiddish name has it's roots in a Hebrew (or Aramaic) name, that the person in question with the known Yiddish name also carries the Hebrew root name (and used it in the synagogue, for example, even if he wasn't known by that name). This is not always the case. Once a Yiddish name took hold, it, at times, had an independent identity. The person may have had only the Yiddish name and not had the Hebrew one, as it was (and still is!) traditional acceptable to use non-Hebrew (albeit Jewish) names even for ritual.") The previous statement is attributable to Avrohom Kraus of Telz-Stone Israel.

A excellent reference book for given names is "A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames From the Kingdom of Poland" and authored by Alexander Beider. Another book of interest is Adstone's "A Directory of Hebrew Names and Dates"

Name Meanings - some sites with the meanings of names and with other information on names. This site includes Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Lithuania, Slovene and German naming customs along with "The Origins of Family Names". http://maxpages.com/poland/Name_Meanings

*Reb Shmuel Gorr's book is "Jewish Personal Names: Their Origin, Derivation, and Diminutive Forms". Published by Avotaynu, Inc. in 1992

"Equivalents are derived from Greek, Latin, French, Spanish and English sources. Direct equivalents of Hebrew names are given first: others follow in alphabetical order. The direct equivalent is omitted if it is identical with the transliteration."

"Adaptations occur not only in relation to the name under which they are listed but are adapted by popular usage from any names with similar sound or initial"

"It is not the case that female converts to Judaism are *required* to take the name Ruth. The misconception about Ruth is presumably based on the fact that the biblical Ruth is often viewed as the "prototypical" female convert (though in biblical, i.e. pre-rabbinic, times there was no official conversion procedure for women)."

It is usual, though, for a female convert to select and adopt a Hebrew name (usually but not necessarily biblical, so she can take her pick)." Whatever name is chosen, the convert will be known as "So and so bat Avraham ve-Sarah."

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Surnames

Surnames were not a necessity, or used until around 1815. Prior to that year, there were some surnames, but only few and they were rare. Examples include Joffe from the 7th Century; Altschuler from the 16th Century, etc. The common surnames as we know them today, started only by the end of the 18th Century and mostly, as previously stated, after 1815.

When a last name carries the "Von" before the surname, that indicates nobility, though it is rare, it is seen in Holland names. "Van" is also used in Dutch records, at least in Sephardi ones, to indicate "of" in the sense of "child of" thus Sara van Jacob) in the same way that "de" was pressed into service in the London Sephardi community."

Israeli Family Names http://theochem.weizmann.ac.il/~comartin/israelinames.txt

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Jewish Personalities and their real names

Asa Yoelson = Al Jolson Milton Berlinger = Milton Berl Fanny Borach = Fanny Brice Bernard Schwartz = Tony Curtis Bobby Zimmerman = Bob Dylan Ethel Zimmerman = Ethel Merman Elliot Goldstein = Elliot Gould Israel Baline = Irving Berlin Stephanie Federkrewcz = Stephanie Powers Belle Silverman = Beverly Sills Betty Joan Perske = Lauren Bacall Nathan Birnbaum = George Burns David Caniel Kaminsky = Danny Kaye Edward Israel Iskowitz = Eddie Cantor Benjamin Kubelsky = Jack Benny Michael Orowitz = Michael Landon Allen Stewart Konigberg = Woody Allen Issue Danielovitch Demsky = Kirk Douglas Sophia Kalish = Sophie Tucker Joseph Gottleib = Joey Bishop Natasha Gurdin = Natalie Wood Lyova Geisman = Lee Grant Joyce Penelope Frankenburg = Jane Seymour Joseph Levitch = Jerry Lewis Melvin Kaminsky = Mel Brooks Elaine Berlin = Elaine May Michael Peschkowsky = Mike Nichols Gerald Silberman = Gene Wilder Jacob Cohen = Rodney Dangerfield Joan Molinsky = Joan Rivers Borge Rosenbaum = Victor Borge Amos Jacob = Lee J. Cobb Lazlo Lowenstein = Peter Lorre Emanual Goldenberg = Edward G. Robinson Judith Tuvim = Judy Holliday Ira Grossel = Jeff Chandler Melvyn Hesselberg = Melvyn Douglas Ivo Levi = Ives Montand Simone-Henriette Kaminker = Simone Signoret Marion Levy = Paulette Goddard Karen Blanche Ziegler = Karen Black Ella Geisman = June Allyson Sidney Leibowitz = Steve Lawrence Abraham Isaac Archawsky = Artie Shaw Adolph Zukor = Adolph Zukor