German Jewish Surnames - Their Meanings Quiz

Answer: Napoleon's administration of captured territories

Napoleon's capture of European territories put many people and their lands under his control. For tax purposes, Napoleon ordered that German Jews (and others) must have formal surnames. As you can imagine, people had to choose a variety of names in a fairly short time period. (Please note: other edicts and laws in the late 1700's and early 1800's also pressured European Jews into choosing formal last names, but Napoleon's rulings had the biggest influence on German Jews, according to Jewishwebindex.com.)

Answer: Small

Klein means small in German. Another variation of this name is Kleiner, which is a type of nickname for a small person. In contrast, a name for a large person is Grossman, from gross, or large, in German.

Answer: Red stone

This name is from the German words roth or red, and stein or stone. Other ornamental names are Rosenberg, or mountain of roses, and Rosenfeld, or a field of roses.

Answer: Reuben

Reuben, one of the twelve tribes of Israel, was Jacob's first-born son. Other biblical first names might occur as patronymic names or "son of" names, such as Davidson, son of David, and Abramson, son of Abram. These names would refer to the person's immediate ancestors, who were in turn named for the famous biblical personality.

Answer: Nadelman

The name Needleman is derived from the German word for needle - nadel. The meaning of the name is someone who made needles, or a user of needles, like a tailor. Shortened English and German forms of this name include Needle and Nadel.

Answer: Righteous priest

The name Katz is derived from the Hebrew phrase Kohen tzadik, where kohen is the Hebrew word for priest and tzadik is the Hebrew word for righteous. It is also the German word for cat, but its use among German Jews is more likely from the religious meaning.

Answer: Elbow

Ellenbogen means elbow in German (I actually met someone by this name in Maryland). According to the website ancestry.com, this name could be an ornamental name, or one describing someone from the Ellenbogen region of Germany (from a bend or an elbow in a river). According to Neil Rosenstein, the names Ellenbogen and Katzellenbogen actually date back to the 1500s; some of the oldest Jewish surnames in Europe.

Answer: Yellow

Originally, these names may have been nicknames for people with yellow (or even reddish) hair, from the German word for yellow, gelb. The German word for white is weiss, and the German word for black is schwarz.

Answer: Speyer

The city of Speyer is in the Rhineland-Palatinate region of Germany, according to the website ancestry.com. Another way of forming a surname is based on adding the suffix "er" to the name of the city where the person comes from. Hence, Berliner is a name for someone from Berlin, according to the website Jewishgen.com. (Please note: as Funtrivia readers have pointed out, Shapiro can have another, Sephardic or eastern origin, meaning good or beautiful.

This German or Ashkenazic origin is cited in the question.)

Answer: They both describe occupations

Both of these names have their meanings in occupations: Zimmerman means carpenter in German, and Zucker is from the German word for sugar, describing a dealer in sugar. Another occupational name starting with the letter z is Zilberschlag, deriving from the Yiddish word for silver, Zilber, and describing someone who shapes or hammers silver. The closely related German word for silver is Silber.

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