Colours as surnames

[Ziz]

Often, such names weren't chosen by the Jews in question, but foisted on them by the bureaucrats tasked with registering the surnames, who tended to indulge in what they thought of as humour. IIRC, there were cases of Jews being given unpleasant names which would be changed to something more pleasant for a bribe.

I've heard this for years now but I've had the damnedest time sourcing it. Do you have any supporting cites, Hans-Werner?

There's this.

[linguoboy]

Often, such names weren't chosen by the Jews in question, but foisted on them by the bureaucrats tasked with registering the surnames, who tended to indulge in what they thought of as humour. IIRC, there were cases of Jews being given unpleasant names which would be changed to something more pleasant for a bribe.

I've heard this for years now but I've had the damnedest time sourcing it. Do you have any supporting cites, Hans-Werner?

There's this.

A mention in a Wikipedia article is not a citation. Their source seems to be personal communication with a certain Gershom Martin, who I wouldn't know from Golda Meir. He likewise provides no cites for his examples, so what is the factual basis for his claim? We don't know.

[Soap]

Often, such names weren't chosen by the Jews in question, but foisted on them by the bureaucrats tasked with registering the surnames, who tended to indulge in what they thought of as humour. IIRC, there were cases of Jews being given unpleasant names which would be changed to something more pleasant for a bribe.

I've heard this for years now but I've had the damnedest time sourcing it. Do you have any supporting cites, Hans-Werner?

I remember reading about that in the dtv-Atlas Namenkunde, but that's on my shelf in Bonn.
A quick search leads me to this PDF, which quotes the dtv-Atlas. According to this, such cases seem to be attested only for Western Galicia:

Es ist verbreitete Ansicht, daß bei der Durchführung solcher Erlasse den Juden für Bestechungsgeld ,schöne‘ Namen wie Blumenberg, sonst aber scheußliche wie Stiefelknecht
gegeben wurden (Ekelnamen).
Entsprechende Vorkommnisse gab es in Westgalizien, wo die Juden 1805 ihre Familiennamen vom Kreisamt oder einem Commissär ,zu empfangen‘ hatten. Sie wurden aber oft zu Unrecht
verallgemeinert und sind andernorts nicht nachweisbar.

So that wasn't as frequent as I remembered.

TONS of these names exist. Krankheit (Cronkite) means sickness, Kotter is from Kot "mud/feces", Goldwater is sometimes said to be a euphemism for urine. (Even the sadistic surname registrars wouldnt actually go so far as to give someone a name like "Piss", etc)

edit: well, ancestry.com says Kotter is just a coincidence, and English has names like Mudd, etc, so I guess that's not that much of a pattern (though Im sure there's other names I cant remember)

[linguoboy]

TONS of these names exist. Krankheit (Cronkite) means sickness, Kotter is from Kot "mud/feces", Goldwater is sometimes said to be a euphemism for urine. (Even the sadistic surname registrars wouldnt actually go so far as to give someone a name like "Piss", etc)

If they're so very common, then it shouldn't be hard to find proper evidence for accounts of their assignment, should it?

Your story about "Goldwater" is quite clever, but implausible given the actual meaning of "Goldwasser" in German. Moreover, it wouldn't be the first name I've seen ascribed to "sadistic registrars" when a quite innocuous and better-supported etymology exists. "Kussmaul" is a good example.

[cunningham]

Corbin Bleu

[Přemysl]

I have no idea if it works its way into surnames but besides silversmiths and goldsmiths there are brownsmiths (bronze), whitesmiths (tin), and blacksmiths. I've always assumed last names like Silver, Golds, Brown, White, and Black came from those professions but I never looked for confirmation. The explanations other gave make as much sense.

[Qwynegold]

I can't think of any in Swedish or Finnish, but in Finnish there's a given name, Sini, though. Sininen means blue.

[Peacekeeper]

I can't think of any in Swedish or Finnish, but in Finnish there's a given name, Sini, though. Sininen means blue.

So it's only half blue? Something like "bl...."

But no, I have to agree with you. Apart from a Norwegian friend of mine called Scarlet, I don't believe I have ever heard a color-derived name anywhere in Scandinavia.

[linguoboy]

But no, I have to agree with you. Apart from a Norwegian friend of mine called Scarlet, I don't believe I have ever heard a color-derived name anywhere in Scandinavia.

I tried searching a Swedish surname site and found several hits for "Hvit" and "Blå", all of them confined to Västergötland. "Gul" was attested both there and in Stockholm, whereas "Guld" only in Jönköping and "Röd" only in Södermanland. "Svart", "Silver", "Brun", and "Grön" were more widely dispersed. "Grå" was so rare no places of origin were given.

According to the assigned rankings, none of these makes it into the top 1000, so I'm not surprised no one's come across them before. The most popular was Brun at #1222. In every case but that of Grön, the corresponding German version of the name (e.g. Braun, Gold, Schwar(t)z, Weiss, etc.) was more popular. Of course, Grön could also be a rounded variant of Gren (#350) "branch", couldn't it?

[Jipí]

So, FWIW, Germany according to Geogen (I tried to take into account as many possible alternate spellings and variants I could think of; if there were just 2 or 3 people I omitted those variants)

Red (total: 26,885)
Rot: 113
Roth: 26,114
Rodt: 24
Roht: 20
Rohd: 11
Rood: 28
Root: 575

Yellow
Gelb: 65

Blue (total: 1,193)
Blau: 1,185
Blauw: 8

Green (total: 3,618)
Grün: 3385
Gruen: 47
Grühn: 182
Gruehn: 4

Brown (total: 44.423)
Braun: 43,511
Brauns: 912

Black (total: 57,147)
Schwarz: 45,495
Schwartz: 3,424
Schwarze: 4,034
Schwartze: 285
Schwarzer: 3,879
Schwartzer: 30

White (total: 42,346)
Weiß: 30,113
Weiss: 8,431
Waiß: 43
Waiss: 11
Weiße: 1,110
Weisse: 193
Weißer: 1,129
Weisser: 1,316

Gray (total: 4,970)
Grau: 3,826
Graue: 279
Grauer: 865

Gold (total: 3,819)
Gold: 1,466
Goldt: 71
Golde: 318
Goldner: 196
Goldschmied: 13
Goldschmidt: 1,625
Goldschmitt: 130

Silver (total: 527)
Silber: 450
Silberer: 73
Silberschmidt: 4

Blonde
Blond: 16

[Magb]

It just occurred to me that some or all of those "Rød"/"Røed" names in Norway could actually be from Old Norse ruð "clearing". There are some Norwegian place names ending in -rød, and I'm pretty sure they're not named after the color. There are also many place names (and therefore surnames) ending in -rud, and "Rud"/"Ruud" itself is a reasonably common name (about 5000 people).

[Jipí]

Yeah, roden means 'to clear woodland' in German (as a noun, Rodung), so that's potentially ambiguous, too. Also, Waise means 'orphan', but it has a voiced [z], not [s] like weiß.

[tubragg]

But no, I have to agree with you. Apart from a Norwegian friend of mine called Scarlet, I don't believe I have ever heard a color-derived name anywhere in Scandinavia.

I tried searching a Swedish surname site and found several hits for "Hvit" and "Blå", all of them confined to Västergötland. "Gul" was attested both there and in Stockholm, whereas "Guld" only in Jönköping and "Röd" only in Södermanland. "Svart", "Silver", "Brun", and "Grön" were more widely dispersed. "Grå" was so rare no places of origin were given.

According to the assigned rankings, none of these makes it into the top 1000, so I'm not surprised no one's come across them before. The most popular was Brun at #1222. In every case but that of Grön, the corresponding German version of the name (e.g. Braun, Gold, Schwar(t)z, Weiss, etc.) was more popular. Of course, Grön could also be a rounded variant of Gren (#350) "branch", couldn't it?

I looked it up at SCB and Swedish stand-alone color names are all very rare (410 people are named "Brun", which indeed seems like the most common one, only 9 are named "Blå"). "Grön" is considerably more widespread as part of a compound. "Grönlund" alone reaches a staggering 2136 hits.

[Qwynegold]

But no, I have to agree with you. Apart from a Norwegian friend of mine called Scarlet, I don't believe I have ever heard a color-derived name anywhere in Scandinavia.

I tried searching a Swedish surname site and found several hits for "Hvit" and "Blå", all of them confined to Västergötland. "Gul" was attested both there and in Stockholm, whereas "Guld" only in Jönköping and "Röd" only in Södermanland. "Svart", "Silver", "Brun", and "Grön" were more widely dispersed. "Grå" was so rare no places of origin were given.

Interesting site (there's 10 people with my name)! Hmm, Gul might not necessarily be a Swedish name.

According to the assigned rankings, none of these makes it into the top 1000, so I'm not surprised no one's come across them before. The most popular was Brun at #1222. In every case but that of Grön, the corresponding German version of the name (e.g. Braun, Gold, Schwar(t)z, Weiss, etc.) was more popular.

Yeah, all of them had only a dozen bearers except of Grön/Gröön, Brun/Bruun, Svart/Swart and Silver/Silfver.

Of course, Grön could also be a rounded variant of Gren (#350) "branch", couldn't it?

I don't know anything about Swedish diachronics, but why would it be rounded?

[linguoboy]

Of course, Grön could also be a rounded variant of Gren (#350) "branch", couldn't it?

I don't know anything about Swedish diachronics, but why would it be rounded?

I'm simply assuming that Swedish would show the same sort of variation that German does in these circumstances.

[MisterBernie]

Of course, Grön could also be a rounded variant of Gren (#350) "branch", couldn't it?

I don't know anything about Swedish diachronics, but why would it be rounded?

I'm simply assuming that Swedish would show the same sort of variation that German does in these circumstances.

Hmm, I'm not really aware of randomly rounding dialects. There's a lot of derounding, yes, but the only rounding shift I can think of is l-vocalisation, but I'm not really aware of that having had an effect on surnames.

[alice]

Of course, Grön could also be a rounded variant of Gren (#350) "branch", couldn't it?

I don't know anything about Swedish diachronics, but why would it be rounded?

Probably not a variant, but a cognate.

[Yiuel Raumbesrairc]

No yellow indeed in French. Though Leblond is common..

In Japanese, you have many, including the famous 紫 murasaki, purple. Many names will also include color names. This comes from the fact most Japanese names are locational, and many places in Japan include a color name.

[linguoboy]

In Japanese, you have many, including the famous 紫 murasaki, purple. Many names will also include color names. This comes from the fact most Japanese names are locational, and many places in Japan include a color name.

Locational or ornamental? Like the Scandinavians and the European Jews, most Japanese adopted surnames relatively recently and my impression was that they showed a similar preference for pleasant-sounding combinations that weren't associated with any particularly toponym. Is there really a Black Swamp someplace where Kurosawa's ancestors originated?

[Zhen Lin]

No yellow indeed in French. Though Leblond is common..

In Japanese, you have many, including the famous 紫 murasaki, purple. Many names will also include color names. This comes from the fact most Japanese names are locational, and many places in Japan include a color name.

But Murasaki was merely an epithet and not a real name.

[Terra]

Is there really a Black Swamp someplace where Kurosawa's ancestors originated?

There is a rice paddy that Tanaka's ancestors came from, at least.

[Peacekeeper]

I tried searching a Swedish surname site

Interesting site (there's 10 people with my name)!

There seem to be 183 113 people with my last name. Which confirms my impression that it's far far too common. I need to come up with a new one.

[linguoboy]

I tried searching a Swedish surname site

Interesting site (there's 10 people with my name)!

There seem to be 183 113 people with my last name. Which confirms my impression that it's far far too common. I need to come up with a new one.

So what's your favourite colour?

[Peacekeeper]

I tried searching a Swedish surname site

Interesting site (there's 10 people with my name)!

There seem to be 183 113 people with my last name. Which confirms my impression that it's far far too common. I need to come up with a new one.

So what's your favourite colour?

Some kind of bluish green, I think. Or dark purple. Mixed in with gold. Very nice combo, that, gold and purple.

So what kind of name could we make with these? Blugroldurple, perhaps?

[Cathbad]

Slovene has Belec, which might be from bel "white". Rus is also a common surname, but its original meaning may be "Russian" rather than "red-brown" (these are homonyms). There may also be some derivatives from zelen "green", such as Zelenec or Zelenko, and plav "blue/blonde", such as Plavec. Rozman is a common one, but I highly doubt it's related to roza "pink" in any meaningful way.

So no, there are not all that many, actually.