Re: USAGE: Betreft: USAGE: surname prefixes

On Thu, 20 Apr 2000 14:16:57 -0500 Matt Pearson
<jmpearson@...> writes:
> I heard a story (perhaps apocryphal?) that in the Middle Ages, many
> German principalities forced their Jewish citizens to adopt German
> surnames, and charged them on a sliding scale in the bargain.  Those
> who could afford to pay a lot were given pretty or poetic names,
> like Himmelblau ("Sky-Blue") and Baumgarten ("Tree-Garden");
> those who could only afford to pay a little were given insulting or
> ugly names, such as Schmutz ("Dirt") and Eselkopf ("Ass-Head").
> Matt.
.

I don't know about that, but i heard a story from my great-uncle that my
family's lastname was changed by the Russians.  The story goes that my
about 7 generations back patrilineal ancestor had the last name Vaisman
(no idea how to spell it in German, or even whether it's German or
Yiddish).  Note that it's _vai*s*man_ and not _vai*tz*man_ like two
presidents of Israel.

So, _vais_ means "white", because it seems that my ancestor Vaisman was a
lumberjack who specialized in white pine trees which you make turpentine
out of.  So, _vaisman_ translates roughly as something like "whitey".

When the forests in Germany began to be depleted, he moved to Russia.  I
forgot which Tsar it was, (i figured it out based on what i learned last
year in Jewish History class) but the Russians forced him to russify his
last name from _vais-man_ to _byel-skiy_ (as in Belarus, "White Russia").


-Stephen (Steg)
 "sleep, like a fog, blew over him."  ~  _gilgamesh_

 (hmm...does that remind anyone else of Sally's "summer, like a white
sword, hangs over the land"?)