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ABSTRACT
This article examines debates in Poland since the 1860s concerning Jews’ naming practices and attempts to resolve the practical and social problems they engendered. Polemics within the Jewish press in Poland, particularly in Warsaw’s Yiddish dailies, reveal competing conceptions of what constitutes an authentic and socially appropriate Jewish name. They also reflect changing perceptions of Yiddish, which had left its stamp on the inventory of names used by Ashkenazic Jews, and its growing place in urban life.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributor
Kalman Weiser is the Silber Family Professor of Modern Jewish Studies.
Notes
1 Żeromski, “The Faithful River,” 28–9. Salcia is actually a variant of Yiddish Sore (Sarah).
2 On making Jews “legible” and the various problems – and bureaucratic attempts to solve them – created by names in Jews’ relations with the state in the tsarist empire, see Avrutin, Jews and the Imperial State, chapters 1 and 5.
3 Samuel Kassow, “Shtetl.” 18 October 2010. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Shtetl (accessed July 20, 2019). Kupovetsky, Mark. “Population and Migration: Population and Migration before World War I.” 12 October 2010. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Population_and_Migration/Population_and_Migration_before_World_War_I (accessed July 29, 2019).
4 On the Assimilationists in Congress Poland, see Cała, Asymilacja Żydów w Królestwie Polskim (1864–1897), and Jagodzińska, Pomiędzy. Akulturacja Żydów Warszawy w drugiej połowie XIX wieku.
5 On Jews’ language use in historic Polish lands, see Weiser, Jewish People, Yiddish Nation, chapter 1.
6 On the Haskalah’s attitude toward Yiddish, see Miron, A Traveler Disguised, chapter 2.
7 Beider, “Discontinuity of Jewish Naming Traditions,” 43–53.
8 The Jewishgen website (jewishgen.com) offers a remarkable wealth of information for the student of Jews names, including tutorials about naming practices and access to metrical records from around the world. Alexander Beider’s books (e.g. his A Dictionary of Ashkenazic Given Names) represent, however, the most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to the development and frequency of Jewish given and surnames among Ashkenazic Jews. An extremely useful guide to scholarly articles about Jewish names in all periods and places is Shlomit Landman’s “Jewish Names,” an annotated bibliography published in the online Oxford Bibliographies in Jewish Studies series. Some important historical studies devoting significant attention to Jews’ naming practices in their social and legal context in the modern period are Avrutin, Jews and the Imperial State; Bering, The Stigma of Names; and Fermaglich’s, A Rosenberg by Any Other Name. Particularly useful for the present study are Jagodzińska, “My Name, My Enemy”; Landau-Czajka, Syn będzie Lech; and Endelman, “Jewish Converts in Nineteenth-Century Warsaw,” 28–59.
9 For the case of the Assimilationists, see, for example, Jagodzińska. Landman gives a large number of sources on the subject of Hebraizing names.
10 On the avoidance of non-Jewish names, see Davis, “Crossing the Name Barrier,” 129–41.
11 For an overall survey of Jews’ naming practices in eastern Europe, see Alexander Beider, “Names and Naming,” 7 September 2010. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Names_and_Naming (accessed March 27, 2019).
12 On the subject of Yiddish names, see Stankiewicz, “The Derivational Pattern of Yiddish Personal (Given) Names,” 267–83.
13 Freeze, Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Imperial Russia, 95–106.
14 See, for example, Verner, “What’s in a Name? of Dog-Killers, Jews and Rasputin,” 1046–70.
15 On this subject, see Litvak, Conscription and the Search for Modern Russian Jewry. See also Avrutin, Jews and the Imperial State, esp. chapters 4 and 5.
16 Avrutin, Jews and the Imperial State, 120–21 and ch.5. Jagodzińska, “My Name, My Enemy,” 46. Handelzalts, “Vegn der nomen-frage bay yidn,” 33–4; Schainker, Confessions of the Shtetl, 165–66, 189.
17 Gershon Bacon, “Poland: Poland from 1795 to 1939,” YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Poland/Poland_from_1795_to_1939 (accessed April 10, 2019).
18 Guesnet, “The Emergence of the First Jewish Metropolis in Warsaw, 1850–80,” 183–4.
19 On Rotwand, see Konic, “Jakub Rotwand,” 87–8. For an obituary, see, “Varshever khronik.” Der fraynd, April 6, 1913.
20 For a discussion of the manual, see Jagodzińska, Pomiędzy, 217–21. See also the editor’s introduction in Kośka, ed. Imiona przez Źydów polskich używane, 21–7.
21 On Meisels’ support for the Polish national cause, see Weeks, From Assimilation to Antisemitism, 45–48.
22 Rotwand, Imiona przez Żydów polskich używane, 19.
23 Rotwand, 13.
24 Jagodzińska, “My Name, My Enemy,” 57.
25 Rotwand, “Przyczynek do uwag w kwestii imion żydowskich.”
26 Fishman, The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture, chapter 2.
27 Sh. Stupnitski, “In zkhus fun ayere nemen,” Moment, April 12, 1929.
28 Izidor Lazar, “Tog-bilder. Yidishe nemen,” Haynt, June 5, 1913.
29 N. S., “Imiona żydowskie,” Izraelita, 1900. On Sokolow, see Bauer, Between Poles and Jews.
30 “Fun tog tsu tog. Unzere yeshues,” Haynt, January 11, 1910.
31 On notions of Jewish urban space in the Russian Empire, see Guesnet, “The Emergence of the First Jewish Metropolis in Warsaw, 1850–1880,” 183–95 and Hofmeister, “Imperial, Ethnic and Local (Non-)Jewish Space in the Cities of Imperial Russia,” 213–26.
32 On Warsaw as a contested space between Jews and Poles prior to WWI, see Scott Ury, Barricades and Banners; Weiser, Jewish People, Yiddish Nation, chapter 2.
33 On the Folksparty in general, see Weiser, Jewish People, Yiddish Nation. On the elections in particular, see Weiser, 140–46, and Silber, “Ambivalent Citizenship – The Construction of Jewish Belonging in Emergent Poland, 1915–1918,” 161–83.
34 On Stupnicki, see Weiser, 126.
35 Sh. Y. Stupnitski, “Git yidishe nemen,” Haynt, November 22, 1915.
36 Stupnitski, “Git yidishe nemen.”
37 Sh. Y. Stupnitski, “Nokhamol di yidishe nemen,” Haynt, December 2, 1915.
38 Stupnitski, “Git yidishe nemen.”
39 Ibid. An English translation of the “Funem priziv” (1902) by Curt Leviant was published as “Back from the Draft” in Avotaynu XIII/2 (Summer 1997).
40 Sh. Hirshhorn, “Di naye pasportn un di yidishe nemen,” Varshever tageblat, October 28, 1915.
41 Noyekh Prilutski, “Kleynikeytn,” Unzer lebn, Spring 1910, reprinted in his Barg-aroyf, Warsaw: Nayer Farlag, 1917, 216–19.
42 Noyekh Prilutski, “Di yidishe nemen,” Moment, December 9, 1915.
43 Ibid. On the creation of nicknames and expressive variants of names in Yiddish, see Stankiewicz, 267–283.
44 On Folkist views of Yiddish, see Weiser, Jewish People, Yiddish Nation.
45 Sh. Y. Stupnitski, “Nokhamol di yidishe nemen,” Haynt, December 12, 1915.
46 H. D. Nomberg, “Vokhedike shmuesn,” Varshever tageblat, January 7, 1916.
47 ibid.
48 On perceptions of Jewish names, see Jagodzińska, “My Name, My Enemy,” esp. 47–56.
49 See, Steinlauf, “Mr. Geldhab and Sambo in ‘peyes’,” 98–128; Brzezina, Polszczyzna Żydów.
50 Sh. Y. Stupnitski, “Yidishe nemen,” Moment, March 1, 1935.
51 Noyekh Prilutski, “Pan knobelman un di yidishe nemen,” Moment, December 30, 1915.
52 Antony Polonsky, “Warsaw,” YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, December 13, 2010, http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Warsaw (accessed July 28, 2019).
53 Weiser, 215–217.
54 On Yiddish signs in Poland, see, for example, Nakhmen Mayzil, “Yidishe shildn,” Literarishe bleter, November 12, 1926.
55 Moyshe Feldshteyn, “Di reynkeyt fun di yidishe nemen,” Haynt, July 15, 1927.
56 Feldstein, ed., Spis Imion Żydowskich, III.
57 “Wróćmy do imion biblijnych,” Nasz Przegląd, July 3, 1927
58 Ibid.
59 Alfa, “Di tsores mit fardreyte yidishe nemen af der provints,” Haynt, July 20, 1927.
60 M. Iktsolbaz [Moyshe Zablotski], “Vegn yidishe nemen,” Haynt, August 14, 1927.
61 Sh. Stupnitski, “In zkhus fun ayere nemen.”
62 On Mieses, see Gershon Bacon, “Mieses, Józef,” in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, August 31, 2010, http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Mieses_Jozef (accessed March 27, 2019).
63 Józef Mieses, “Kwestja imion żydowskich,” Nowy Dziennik, July 5 & 6, 1928.
64 Sh. Shverdsharf, “Dos hekhste gerikht vegn yidishe nemen,” Haynt, October 3, 1934.
65 Handelzalts, “Vegn der nomen-frage ba yidn,” 33–4; 46–7.
66 On the emergence of the Jewish public sphere in cities, particularly in Warsaw, see Ury, Barricades and Banners, esp. chapter 4.
67 Meyer Grosman, “Der gilgul fun yidishe nemen,” Haynt, December 4, 1936; Blanc, “Some Yiddish Influences on Israeli Hebrew,” 189. On Sabra names, see Almog, The Sabra, 91–95.
68 On names as an expression of affection in modern Hebrew, see Burshteyn, “Tsipora Livni ve-Shauli Mofaz,” 65–85.
69 Sh. Y. Stupnitski, “Yidishe nemen,” Moment, March 1, 1935; “Poylishe studentn far yidishe nemen,” Haynt, January 29, 1922; “Gegn yidn mit nisht-yidishe nemen,” Hayntike nayes, April 5, 1938.
70 Beider, “Names and Naming.”
71 See, for example, Fermaglich, A Rosenberg by Any Other Name, for the situation in North America and Beider, “Discontinuity of Jewish Naming Traditions” for the Soviet Union.
72 Jagodzińska, “My Name, My Enemy,” 56.
73 See Shverdsharf, for example. On shmendrikizm, see Weiser, “The Capital of Yiddishland?”, 315–16.
74 See, for example, Seidman, Sarah Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement, 185, 281.
75 Landau-Czajka, Syn będzie Lech, 229–36.
76 Cited in ibid., 233.