Jews are sometimes named after biblical figures or other heroes of Jewish history. However, Jews also use the names common in the country they live in ex:Isreal. Many Jewish names are actually Yiddish names, examples of this are Menachem for a boy, or Hinda for a girl. Some people are casually called a shortened version of their name. Coby in place of Yaakov or Sruli in place of Yisrael are examples of that.
Boys:
Yitzchak
Shlomo
Abraham Jacob/Yaakov David Joseph/Yosef Moshe Aaron/Aharon Joshua/Yehoshua Daniel Akiva Asher
Girls: Miriam Chava Sarah Leah Rebbecca/Rivka Rachel Tamar Deborah/Devorah Jessica Abigail Chaya
How Jews got their Names....
Other than aristocrats and wealthy people Jews did not get surnames in Eastern Europe until the Napoleon years of the early 19th century. Most of the Jews from countries captured by Napoleon, Russia, Poland, and Germany were ordered to get surnames for tax purposes.
After Napoleon's defeat, many Jews dropped these names and returned to "son of" names such as: MENDELSOHN, JACOBSON, LEVINSON, etc.
During the so called Emancipation, Jews were once more ordered to take surnames. In Austria The Emperor Joseph made Jews take last names in the late 1700s, Poland in 1821 and Russia in 1844. It's probable that some of our
families have had last names for 175 years or less.
In France and the Anglo Saxon countries surnames went back to the 16th century. Also Sephardic Jews had surnames stretching back centuries.
Spainprior to Ferdinand and Isabella was a golden spot for Jews. They were expelled by Isabella in the same year that Columbus left for America.
The earliest American Jews were Sephardic.
In general there were Five types of names (people had to pay for their choice of names; the poor had assigned names):
1-- Names that were descriptive of the head of household:
Examples:
HOCH (tall) ,
KLEIN (small),
COHEN (rabbi ),
BURGER (village dweller),
SHEIN (good looking),
LEVI (temple singer),
GROSS (large),
SCHWARTZ (dark or black),
WEISS (white),
KURTZ (short)
2 -- Names describing occupations:
Examples:
HOLTZ (wood)
HOLTZHOCKER (wood chopper),
GELTSCHMIDT (goldsmith),
SCHNEIDER (tailor),
KREIGSMAN (wa rrior),
MALAMED (teacher)
EISEN (iron),
FISCHER (fish)
3-- Names from city of residence:
Examples:
BERLIN,
FRANKFURTER,
DANZIGER,
OPPENHEIMER,
DEUTSCH (German)
POLLACK (Polish),
BRESLAU,
MANNHEIM,
CRACOW,
WARSHAW
4 -- Bought names:Examples:
GLUCK (luck),
ROSEN (roses),
ROSENBLATT (rose paper or leaf),
ROSENBERG (rose mountain),
ROTHMAN (red man),
DIAMOND,
KOENIG (king),
KOENIGSBERG (king's mountain),
SPIELMAN (spiel is to play),
LIEBER (lover),
BERG (mountain),
WASSERMAN (water dweller),
KERSHENBLATT (church paper),
STEIN (glass).
5-- Assigned names (usually undesirable):
Examples:
PLOTZ (to die,explode)
KLUTZ (clumsy),
BILLIG (cheap)
DREK (dross)
Kogan,
Cohen,
Braverman,
Golinsky,
Stein,
Braunstein,
Gluckman is one.
There are many different and varied Jewish surnames. Among the more popular are: Cohen, Stein, Aaronson, Adler, Ben-Gurion, Berg, Berger, Bergman, Bloomberg, Chomsky and David.
There's some names that really sound more Jewish than others, such as Cohen, Schwartz, Rosenthal, Goldberg, etc. Pretty much anything that ends in -berg or -baum such as Rosenbaum sounds Jewish.
Surnames are not considered 'popular' in the same way as a Christian name is, as your first name is chosen but your surname is your family name. However, one of the most common Jewish Surnames, I believe, is probably Cohen.
While there really are no specific Jewish surnames in the since that a name is not an indicator of religious orientation, there are many names that have been connected to people who are indeed Jewish. Levy, Goldberg, Horowitz, Miller, and Singer are good examples of this.
Cohen is usually Jewish.
weisel
Goodman
anti semitism (APEX)
Where?
Most people with the last name "Reed" are Christian or Agnostic/Atheist, but there are some Jews with the last name Reed. There are very few actually "Jewish" last names where you can be reasonably certain the person having that name is Jewish (one such being Cohen/Cohan, which comes from a Hebrew word meaning "priest"), because "last names" are mostly an invention of relatively recent times and Jews have historically tended to take last names from the culture in which they found themselves living when the whole "last name" thing got started. Most last names that are thought of as "Jewish" in the US are really German names (and wouldn't be thought of as especially "Jewish" in Germany or Austria), because a lot of German Jews immigrated to the US to escape persecution. A lot of Polish Jews did too, but we normally don't think of Polish last names as being terribly Jewish: a lot of non-Jewish Poles also immigrated to the US, which "dilutes" the perceived Jewishness of Polish names. Most non-Jewish Germans who immigrated to the US did it early enough in US history that their names have a) been Anglicized (Schmidt to Smith, Klein to Kline or Cline) or b) have been around so long they're not thought of as being particularly "ethnic" anymore (Lang, Weber, Keller). One thing that makes it even trickier is that last names are usually passed down from the father's side, but "Jewishness" is, by Jewish custom, passed down through the mother. If your mother was Jewish, you're Jewish. If your father was Jewish and your mother wasn't, as far as Orthodox Jews are concerned you're a Gentile unless you explicitly convert to Judaism. So even some Cohens are not "Jewish".
Doctor Frankenstein was not Jewish in the book. It could be a Jewish name, in theory, because many Jews have German/Yiddish last names, including some with the suffix "stein," which means "stone."
It can be. There are certainly some people named Kaufman who are Jewish. But it is difficult to tell by names alone -- Kaufman could also be a German last name, for example, and many Germans are Lutheran rather than Jewish. These days, people acquire a last name in many different ways. In addition to being born into a Jewish family, some people convert to Judaism, or they marry someone from another culture; they then have a name that sounds Greek or Swedish or Irish or Korean, and yet they are Jewish. Further, there are Jewish people who were born in foreign countries where there are not large numbers of Jews; so they may not have a "typical" Jewish last name, but rather, one that is common to their country. A good example is Rabbi Gershom Sizomu of Uganda, one of the leaders of the Abayudaya community. "Sizomu" is not a name most of us would think is Jewish, and yet he is.
There aren't "last names for girls" and "last names for boys." Its just last names. For the first names there are names for different genders, but not for the last names. Some last names are: Zamora, Smith, Turner, Williams
Most people with the last name "Reed" are Christian or Agnostic/Atheist, but there are some Jews with the last name Reed. There are very few actually "Jewish" last names where you can be reasonably certain the person having that name is Jewish (one such being Cohen/Cohan, which comes from a Hebrew word meaning "priest"), because "last names" are mostly an invention of relatively recent times and Jews have historically tended to take last names from the culture in which they found themselves living when the whole "last name" thing got started. Most last names that are thought of as "Jewish" in the US are really German names (and wouldn't be thought of as especially "Jewish" in Germany or Austria), because a lot of German Jews immigrated to the US to escape persecution. A lot of Polish Jews did too, but we normally don't think of Polish last names as being terribly Jewish: a lot of non-Jewish Poles also immigrated to the US, which "dilutes" the perceived Jewishness of Polish names. Most non-Jewish Germans who immigrated to the US did it early enough in US history that their names have a) been Anglicized (Schmidt to Smith, Klein to Kline or Cline) or b) have been around so long they're not thought of as being particularly "ethnic" anymore (Lang, Weber, Keller). One thing that makes it even trickier is that last names are usually passed down from the father's side, but "Jewishness" is, by Jewish custom, passed down through the mother. If your mother was Jewish, you're Jewish. If your father was Jewish and your mother wasn't, as far as Orthodox Jews are concerned you're a Gentile unless you explicitly convert to Judaism. So even some Cohens are not "Jewish".
Joseph, Sarah, Israel are some names.
some long last names are tutiveiliartivacikouto, maekendakeledalevu, undansutiflagoder, and last rigyernistisky
bryant
Some people named Rothman are Jewish, some are not. This is the case with nearly all so-called "Jewish" names.
Some did. Others took the names of prominent historical figures when they were freed (this is one reason there are a lot of black families with the last name "Washington", for example).