Bennett Muraskin studies their origins:
In attempting to build modern nation-states, the authorities insisted that Jews take last names so that they could be taxed, drafted and educated (in that order of importance). For centuries, Jewish communal leaders were responsible for collecting taxes from the Jewish population on behalf of the government, and in some cases were responsible for filling draft quotas. Education was traditionally an internal Jewish affair.
Until this period, Jewish names generally changed with every generation. For example, if Moses son of Mendel (Moyshe ben Mendel) married Sarah daughter of Rebecca (Sora bas Rifke), had a boy and named it Samuel (Shmuel), the child would be called Shmuel ben Moyshe. If they had a girl and named her Feygele, she would be called Feygele bas Sora.
Jews distrusted the authorities and resisted the new requirement. Although they were forced to take last names, at first they were used only for official purposes. Among themselves, they kept their traditional names. Over time, Jews accepted the new last names, which were essential as Jews sought to advance within the broader society and as the shtetles were transformed or Jews left them for big cities.
Some of the names were derived from personal traits:
Alter/Alterman — old; Dreyfus—three legged, perhaps referring to someone who walked with a cane;
Erlich — honest; Frum — devout ; Gottleib — God lover, perhaps referring to someone very devout; Geller/Gelber — yellow, perhaps referring to someone with blond hair; Gross/Grossman — big; Gruber — coarse or vulgar; Feifer/Pfeifer — whistler; Fried/Friedman—happy; Hoch/Hochman/Langer/Langerman — tall; Klein/Kleinman — small; Koenig — king, perhaps someone who was chosen as a “Purim King,” in reality a poor wretch; Krauss — curly, as in curly hair; Kurtz/Kurtzman — short; Reich/Reichman — rich; Reisser — giant; Roth/Rothman — red head; Roth/Rothbard — red beard; Shein/Schoen/Schoenman — pretty, handsome; Schwartz/Shwartzman/Charney — black hair or dark complexion; Scharf/Scharfman — sharp, i.e intelligent; Stark — strong, from the Yiddish shtark ; Springer — lively person, from the Yiddish springen for jump.
A few Jewish dudes got especially creative:
Update from a reader:
Interestingly, the word feygele (or feygela) is used in modern Yiddish to refer to a gay man. Most often, the word is spoken with some affection and is not typically used as a slur. Little did I realize that it was also a woman’s name.
Another:
Just a warning – you are likely to get a zillion emails about how sloppy and inaccurate the scholarship is in that piece on “Jewish surnames.” A good many of the names are misspelled (reversals of ei and ie being the most common error, but by no means the only one), and many of the derivations are patently wrong. I saw it in Slate and wrote it off as typical Slate shallow unresearched crap. Note that the original article is followed by a list of corrections as long as your arm (inexcusably not included in the Slate pickup).
Thanks for including.
The Dish 