Talk:German family names

message: Expanding is good, but we should define a goal. Simply adding large numbers of family names will make the page unusable. There are tens of thousands of German family names. Any suggestions for what an expanded page might look like? --Chl 2 July 2005 14:43 (UTC)
One possibility is along linguistic lines, such as how names vary by region, much as placenames ending in -caster are found in the north of England, versus -chester in the south.  For example, one of the variations of Meyer (typically German?) is  Maier (typically Austrian?).  I also understand that spelling variations such -man or -mann are also significant, I think dividing along Jewish/non-Jewish lines.
Trishm 11:32, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested expansion

message: Since a) there are other discussions of the subject of Jewish surnames within Wikipedia, and b) most "German" Jewish surnames are actually as much Yiddish as German, and c) almost everything in this short discussion is incorrect or highly incomplete, perhaps we should replace it with a link to Jewish name.
Some points of fact:
° Rothschild and Schwarzschild are names of houses, the former in the Frankfurt ghetto.  (Click link for reference.)
° Stein is not a two-part name.
° The "assigned by the officials" and "derogatory names" stories are largely myth.  There are plenty of Jewish jokes and anti-Semitic canards about this sort of thing, but the alleged names themselves are almost impossible to find, and most proffered examples turn out to be non-derogatory, equally or more common among Gentiles, or pure fiction.  This tiny footnote in the subject of Jewish names gets far, far more press than it should.
° Meyer to blend in: Meir is a Hebrew given name; many Jews took "Meyer" as their "public" given name as well.
° Loewe to blend in: Loewe was chosen directly from the given name Judah.  At the end of Genesis, the dying Jacob blessed his sons, comparing 4 of them to animals.  Judah was compared to a lion (Aryeh in Hebrew, hence that given name).  The "public" given name for many Jews named Aryeh or Yehuda or similar was Loeb or Loebel, and the surname was derived from that.  See http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/namfaq0.htm#07 for more on the kinnui (nickname) issue.
° Loewe for Levi: that would cause confusion, because anyone from the tribe of Judah was by definition not a Levite.  This transformation may have happened on occasion, but given the popularity of names like Levin and Levi, not to mention other names such as Siegel that could connote Levitic descent, it's unlikely that this would explain more than a few cases.
To Trish: in German, the -mann suffix always has the double-n, just like the word "Mann", meaning "man."  In Poland and Russia, where German was not spoken, Yiddish was written in Hebrew characters and Russian in Cyrillic, transliterations of names usually used "-man."  The second "n" was also generally dropped by immigrants to English-speaking countries, not least because of how we spell the word "man."
To Redluca: colors were also physical attributes, often hair--hence black, white, red, brown, gold, yellow.  The surname "Goldgar" is a transliteration of "Goldhaar" (golden hair) from the Cyrillic, where g and h are assigned to the same character.  (You haven't really experienced Gamlet until you've seen it done in the original Russian. ;) )
RogerLustig 23:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Jewish Question

message: Where did this surname come from? Anything to do with the Basque surname Ondarza? On the Internet I've found out references to Elsa von Ondarza (born in Hamburg in 1869, married with a Zu Hohenlohe in 1891), to Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Ramon von Ondarza (Medical Corps, captured with Göring in 1945), to Colonel Leon von Ondarza (1903-1945, Knight's Cross in 1944, 2nd Armoured Artillery Regiment), to Dr.Hans von Ondarza,  to NATO General Henning von Ondarza (1st German Armoured Division)...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.142.175.22 (talk) 10:56, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Von Ondarza??? 

message: That one is unreferenced, and I don't really think the "etymology" put forward for it is of much value. What stories would there be for people called "Fuchs" (fox), "Wolf" or "Bär" (bear)? It sounds a bit far-fetched, and if the person who put it there doesn't have a decent ref to support it, I think we'd be better off without it. Trigaranus (talk) 15:40, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geier