Today all of us have last names. But this wasn’t always the case. Back in the days of Tanach people were known simply as “ben so-and-so” — Shaul ben Kish Dovid ben Yishai Shlomo ben Dovid. Even in the Gemara there were no last names. People were known by their father’s names until well into the modern era — in fact in some parts of the world Jews didn’t have last names until the early twentieth century!

So what happened? Did people simply wake up one morning and decide “I think I’ll pick a last name today?” Not exactly but that’s not far from the truth.

In 1787 Emperor Franz Joseph II of Austria enacted a law: All Jews in Galicia had to pick a last name and register it within six months. Since there were hundreds of thousands of Jews living in Galicia at the time this law had immediate repercussions not just for Jews under Franz Joseph’s rule but also for Jews in many other European countries. The law spread to Germany and France by the early 1800s and to Russia by the mid-1800s.

Depending on the region of Europe a family lived in they could either choose their own last name or were assigned last names by the non-Jewish authorities. Sometimes last names were based on nature or colors (such as Rosenberg meaning “mountain of roses” or Grunblatt “green leaf”) and other times they were based on the family’s father’s name (like Abramson “son of Avraham ” or Jacobson “son of Yaakov”). In some small towns unfriendly clerks would give out names that were downright cruel — like Hazenfartz (rabbit face) or Ochsenschwantz (ox tail).

Not surprisingly many of the worst last names were abandoned and changed to more flattering names over time. But have you ever wondered why so many Jewish families are named Schwartz or Gross? This is because in Hungary people were given a choice of four last names: Schwartz meaning “black ” for dark-haired people; Weiss meaning “white ” for fair-haired people; Klein meaning “small ” for short people and Gross meaning “large ” for tall people.

 To read the rest of this story please buy this issue of Mishpacha. To sign up for a weekly subscription click here.