In 1808 Napoleon sent out a decree commanding all Jews to adopt family names.
The names were devised from precious stones, as Rubenstein; precious metals, such as Goldstein, Silberberg; plants, trees, and animals, such as Mandelbaum, Lilienthal, Ochs, Wolf, and Loewe.
Last name Concept Super interesting!
The German Jews created surnames by the simple method of affixing the syllable “son” to the father’s name, thus making Jacobson, Isaacson; while others adopted the names of the localities in which they lived, the Jew resident in Berlin becoming Berliner, and the Jew resident of Oppenheim becoming Oppenheimer.
It is noteworthy that a Belmont became American agent of the Rothschilds, and that the name of Rothschild is derived from the red shield on a house in the Jewish quarter of Frankfort-on-the-Main. What the original family name is has never been divulged.
Rothschilds are Jewish?
Trotsky?
When Leon Bronstein becomes Leo Trotsky
When Rosenbluth and Schlesinger becomes “The American Mercantile Company,” there is justification for the feeling that the name “American” is being used to conceal the Jewish character of the firm.
Changing names and luck
The tendency of Jews to change their names dates back very far. There was and is a superstition that to give a sick person another name is to “change his luck,” and save him from the misfortune destined upon his old name. There was also the biblical example of a change of nature being followed by a change of name, as when Abram became Abraham and Jacob became Israel.
USA, USA, USA!
In the United States it is hardly to be doubted that business and social reasons are mostly responsible for the changes in Jewish names. The designation “American” is itself much coveted, as may be gathered by its frequent use in firm names, the members of which are not American in any sense that entitles them to blazon the name throughout the world.
Jewish last names are Christian too
Jacob becomes Jackson, Jacobi, Jacobus, Jacof, Kaplan, Kauffmann, Marchant, Merchant.
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