How did the Jew Fish get its name?

The name "jewfish," which some find offensive, is on the way out. In a rare move, the group responsible for naming fish in the Americas is changing the common name of Florida's largest grouper species.

No one knows for sure how the jewfish got its name, although several theories exist, said Nelson, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta. One theory is that when people started eating the fish, they found its flesh very clean, like kosher food. A less pleasant theory is that in the 1800s, jewfish were considered trash fish, and some people declared it was only fit for Jews. Yet another theory is that it was called "jawfish" for its huge mouth, and that later became "jewfish" through Southern accents and colloquialisms. And those aren't even all the theories.

https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2001/05/24/big-fish-gets-a-giant-name/
sptimes.com/News/052401/news_pf/State/Big_fish_get_a_giant_.shtml no longer exists

"But by far the greatest source we have about our fishy friend is from the Oxford English Dictionary, which quotes from a book published in 1697, entitled 'A New Voyage Round the World,' by the famed explorer, William Dampier.

In the book, Dampier logs his expedition to Jamaica, where he encounters Jews (who are an extreme minority, as they are in most other nations), who favor a certain type of fish - the jewfish - which they consider to be the grandest kosher fish.

Kosher, because it has both fins and scales, and the grandest, because it is by far the largest kosher fish around, as it is in Florida's Keys (second to only the shark, when including all fishes). The quote from the OED is: "The Jew-fish is a very good Fish, and I judge so called by the English, because it hath Scales and Fins, therefore a clean Fish, according to the Levitical Law."

http://sethrosenthal.tumblr.com/post/45693719350/jewfishes

The Atlantic goliath grouper has been referred to as the jewfish, but in 2001, the American Fisheries Society stopped using that term because they felt that it was culturally insensitive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_goliath_grouper

The poster referenced on scubaboard seems to have embellished the story. Dampier was on a piratical trip near Acapulco when catching some Jewfish to eat reminded him to describe the fish as follows (the full passage from Gutenberg Project):

"JEW-FISH. The jew-fish is a very good fish, and I judge so called by the English because it has scales and fins, therefore a clean fish, according to the Levitical law, and the Jews at Jamaica buy them and eat them very freely. It is a very large fish, shaped much like a cod but a great deal bigger; one will weigh three, or four, or five hundredweight. It has a large head, with great fins and scales, as big as an half-crown, answerable to the bigness of his body. It is very sweet meat, and commonly fat. This fish lives among the rocks; there are plenty of them in the West Indies, about Jamaica and the coast of Caracas; but chiefly in these seas, especially more westward."

https://www.scubaboard.com/community/threads/how-did-the-jewfish-get-its-name.63185/#post-671928

So it wasn't necessarily named by Jews but they did like the fish. The notion that it was a trash fish at one time is ridiculous as all reports from 17th century on praise it as excellent eating. Dampier was an interesting character and was known for his clear writing and keen observation.