According to the popular anecdote, in the world there is no such thing that the Chinese would not serve as food, but for the Jew as a family name. This is partly true, since the origin of Jewish surnames has a history of more than three hundred years. The people themselves exist much longer, but since he was once Is similar to gypsies and did not have a definite place of dislocation, then its representatives did not need surnames. They lived scattered all over the world. However, in the 18th century laws emerged that obliged all Jews to acquire surnames, so that they could somehow be identified.
It can be said that almost all Jewish surnames are created artificially. They are derived from names, both male and female, as well as from professions, from animal names, from appearance, from geographical names, etc. The most common surnames are those who have cleric titles such as "cohen" and "levy" in the roots, for example: Kaplan, Kogan, Katz, Kaganovich, Levinsky, Levitan, Levit, Levinson, Levin, etc.
If there were no priests in the family, Jewish names were often invented from names, to which the ending or suffix simply added. Thus appeared Samuels, Abrahams, Israel, Mendelssohn and others. If the surname, formed on behalf of, has the ending -zon or -son, this means that its carrier is the son of a certain person. For example: the son of Abram - Abramson, the son of Michael - Michael, the son of Mendel - Mendelssohn, etc. In exactly the same way, Jewish names appeared from women's names, because it is known that women are very revered by the sons of Israel. For example, Rivkin, Sorinson, Tsivyan, Baileys are derived from the names of Rivka, Sarah, Tsiv and Bail respectively. Jews, who lived in tsarist Russia, added a suffix -evich or -ovich to the name. Thus, Abramovichi, Berkeviichi, Arievichi, Khagayevichi and others turned out.
Very many Jewish surnames are formed from the name of professions. The most popular is, of course, Rabinovich, because it originated from such a religious profession as the rabbi. From here follow Rabin, Rabinzon, Rabiner and others with similar roots. If you met the name Shuster - it means that in the family of this man, there were certainly shoemakers. Surname Kramer, Gendler and Schneider are translated as "shopkeeper", "trader" and "tailor" respectively.
Jewish surnames, the list of which will follow, derive from geographical names: Gomel, Lemberg, Sverdlov, Klebanov, Teplitsky, Podolsky, Volynsky, Lvov, Lioznov, etc. Some surnames may sound like Russian, for example, Mudryk, Gorbonos, Zdoroviak, Belenky, etc. But do not be deceived, because they are due to the appearance or character traits of their owners. There are also a lot of artificially created names, which consist of two interconnected roots. For example, Goldenberg, Rosenbaum, Glikman, Rosenfeld, Goldman can literally be translated as a "golden mountain", a "pink tree" (meaning not a flower, but a flower), a "happy man", a "pink field", a "golden man", respectively.