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"How Jews Got Their Last Names" in the March/April 2008 issue of Moment Magazine tells the general story. Here’s some help to get you started on your personal search.
A Name Detective Starter Kit
Tracing your family name could become a lifelong pursuit, but you will find much company and an ever-growing number of resources to aid the search for your historical roots.
Start With Family
Ask relatives about the names of all their ancestors and living relatives, their hometowns, other places they lived, when they immigrated, how they immigrated (e.g., the name of the ship), and their port of entry. Search your attic for birth, marriage and death certificates, education documents, passports, names of cemeteries, newspaper articles and photos.
Start with the current generation and work backwards. Try not to skip a generation; a gap in your research could lead you easily down incorrect paths.
Investigate paternal names first; they are usually easier to trace than maternal names.
File the information that you gather in paper or electronic folders. You may want to invest in genealogical software.
Read Books
The most frequently recommended book to inspire beginners in Jewish genealogy is Dan Rottenberg's Finding Our Fathers: A Guidebook to Jewish Genealogy (Random House, 1977).
Robert Singerman's Jewish Given Names and Family Names: A New Bibliography, (Brill, 2001) contains a subject-organized list of more than 3,000 publications on Jewish names throughout history.
Jeffrey Malka's Sephardic Genealogy Discovering Your Sephardic Ancestors and Their World. (Avotanu, 2002) explains how to trace Sephardic ancestry through archives dating from the 12th century to the present.
Check the Web
The newest, richest, and most easily-navigated information is on the plethora of websites devoted to genealogy and names.
For information on origins and types of Jewish names, check out:
bh.org.il/Names/jfamilynames.asp houses Beth Hatefutsoth's database of almost 20,000 Jewish family names used in the Disapora. A typical entry describes the etymology of the name and its variants, the area of dispersion since its earliest known occurrence, and examples of Jewish individuals with that name.
gaminggeeks.org/Resources/KateMonk/Middle-East/Jewish/Surnames.htm offers lists of Jewish surnames and possible spellings.
last-names.net/Articles/Jewish-Names.asp supplies information about ethnic origins of Jewish surnames.
Jewfaq.org/jnames.htm introduces information about distinctive and non-so-distinctive Jewish names.
s-gabriel.org/names/juetta/biblio.html#part1 offers an annotated bibliography of works on medieval Jewish names.
genealoj.org/ENtexte/page15.html gives an introductory explanation of Jewish surnames from around the world, including North Africa, Spain, and Portugal.
members.tripod.com/Niallf/Surnames.htm offers a list of Jewish surnames in Ireland, 1901 and earlier.
For particulars on Sephardic names, check:
Sephardim.com lists 14,000 Sephardic surnames and some unique resources such as a section on Sephardic genealogy by DNA.
orthohelp.com/geneal/nameorig.HTM provides a table of Sephardic names with their variations, origin, and meaning.
Find Resources To Track Your Name
Jewishgen.org is the most comprehensive resource for all aspects of Jewish genealogical research. It enables access to such sources as the U.S. Federal Census (the most recently available is 1930; because of the 72-year privacy rule, the 1940 census will be released in 2012), city directories for birth, marriage, and death records, naturalization records and ship passenger lists. For example, EllisIsland.org lists ship manifests from 1892 to 1924.
jewishgen.org/gedcom, the Family Tree of the Jewish People, contains more than 3 million individual names as well as birth, death, and marriage dates and places with links to parents, spouses and children. Created by Jewish genealogists, you can research their findings.
avotanu.com offers a number of publications and journals for sale and a free biweekly Internet newsletter on the latest developments in Jewish genealogy.
familysearch.org connects to the LDS (Latter Day Saints, i.e., Mormon) Family History Centers that house the largest genealogical library in the world. More than 90 percent of its patrons are not Mormon. Potentially especially valuable is its large collection of 19th century Jewish records from Hungary, Germany and Poland and its Social Security Death Index (1962 to the present).
sephardicgen.com offers comprehensive lists and links to numerous resources for researching Sephardic names, organized by countries of origin, and gives specific advice for beginners.
Join Fellow Researchers
Use the web to find both experts and amateurs who are researching Jewish names.
Sephardim.com has a forum with almost 2,000 members who post online questions and answers concerning Sephardic lineage and surnames.
jewishgen.org/jgff/, the Jewish Gen Family Finder, lets you see if one of more than 80,000 genealogists is working on your family name (some 100,000 ancestral surnames are now in the database) or original town. Use the site to exchange information with fellow researchers.
iajgs.org/members/members.html, the web site for the more than 75 worldwide Jewish Genealogical Society chapters, boasts 50 in the U.S. and Canada. Most chapters hold beginners' workshops, publish newsletters and hold regular meetings.
jewishgen.org/infofiles/faq.html#starting lists Special Interest Groups (known as SIGs) that focus on Jews from particular areas, particularly places in Germany and Eastern Europe, but include ones in South Africa, France and Scandinavia. Most have online discussion groups.