How People get Their Names

Common people in England often got their names from the work they did: Baker, Powder Maker, Cooper (someone who makes barrels). People also took names from the places where they lived or from some features of the landscape nearby, such as Westfield, Shore, Hill.

For thousands of years, people who followed the Jewish faith had no regular family names. A boy named Isaac might be called Isaac Ben Jacob, but that only meant he was the son of Jacob. Then, about 150 years ago, the Christian governments of countries in the eastern Europe made a law requiring Jews to choose family names. But in many places, Jews were not allowed to take any names that Christians were already using, and so they had to make up new ones. Often, they put together words that suggested things of beauty: flower mountain (Blumberg), rose valley (Rosenthal).

In Austria, government officials began to charge a fee for suggesting a name. The more attractive it was, the higher the fee.

The most popular of all Jewish family names has a different history. It comes from a word that means priest. The usual way of spelling this name in the English-speaking world is Cohen. But if the family came from Germany, it may be spelled Kahn or Kohn.

In Spanish-speaking countries, a woman keeps her own name after she marries. Her son may choose either her name or his father's, or he may combine them, putting the letters between the two. Y in Spanish means and. So Joan Rivera Y Gonzalez means: Joan, the son of Mr. Rivera and his wife who was born into a family named Gonzalez.