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ArchivesRe: Austrian Names
in reply to a message by Sara Ruth
I've lurked on this site before but this is my first time posting a reply. I was tempted to come out of lurking to post here because the names/ancestors you posted are similar to mine - except my g-g-grandmother was named Pauline Greenburg instead of Ginsburg!
Malka is a female Hebrew name. So in that example, I wonder if it's mistakenly entered as a brother when it was really a younger sister.
Juda being abbreviated as I. was because they pronounced Juda as "Yuda" - being Eastern European, the J would not be pronounced as in English.
Finally, I wanted to add that, in relation to your earlier linked post, Perl is a Yiddish name and not a Hebrew one. I know this because my mother's name is Paulee and she was always told as a child that her Hebrew name was Perl - until it came time for her bat mitzvah and they told her that Perl was not a Hebrew name, and she had to take Penina, which she still complains about to this day! However, I thought that was interesting because it's another example of Perl and the "Paula" family of names being linked in a Jewish woman.
Hope this helps :)
Malka is a female Hebrew name. So in that example, I wonder if it's mistakenly entered as a brother when it was really a younger sister.
Juda being abbreviated as I. was because they pronounced Juda as "Yuda" - being Eastern European, the J would not be pronounced as in English.
Finally, I wanted to add that, in relation to your earlier linked post, Perl is a Yiddish name and not a Hebrew one. I know this because my mother's name is Paulee and she was always told as a child that her Hebrew name was Perl - until it came time for her bat mitzvah and they told her that Perl was not a Hebrew name, and she had to take Penina, which she still complains about to this day! However, I thought that was interesting because it's another example of Perl and the "Paula" family of names being linked in a Jewish woman.
Hope this helps :)
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Replies
Thanks for your help!
I just looked at the ship manifest again after reading your comment about Malke, and even though the Ellis Island website lists the child as a male, the ship manifest clearly shows that Malke is a female! The name actually looks more like Molke, but Malka seems more likely as the family was Jewish.
It puzzles me why "Juda Hirsch" would become "I. H. Einmaldank" but at least its plausible that they were the same person because of the I.H. initials...
Thanks for your comments about the name Perl and Pauline too. It's been very confusing to me to try and figure out why our family records show her as Paula, her immigration and marriage records show Perl and 3 later census records show Pauline! It's interesting to me that we don't see my g-g-grandmother taking a Hebrew name though. She seems to have gone from Yiddish to and English name. Do you think its possible she might have had a Jewish name too, but that its just not recorded?
Thanks,
Sara
I just looked at the ship manifest again after reading your comment about Malke, and even though the Ellis Island website lists the child as a male, the ship manifest clearly shows that Malke is a female! The name actually looks more like Molke, but Malka seems more likely as the family was Jewish.
It puzzles me why "Juda Hirsch" would become "I. H. Einmaldank" but at least its plausible that they were the same person because of the I.H. initials...
Thanks for your comments about the name Perl and Pauline too. It's been very confusing to me to try and figure out why our family records show her as Paula, her immigration and marriage records show Perl and 3 later census records show Pauline! It's interesting to me that we don't see my g-g-grandmother taking a Hebrew name though. She seems to have gone from Yiddish to and English name. Do you think its possible she might have had a Jewish name too, but that its just not recorded?
Thanks,
Sara
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Thanks for your comments about the name Perl and Pauline too. It's been very confusing to me to try and figure out why our family records show her as Paula, her immigration and marriage records show Perl and 3 later census records show Pauline! It's interesting to me that we don't see my g-g-grandmother taking a Hebrew name though. She seems to have gone from Yiddish to and English name. Do you think its possible she might have had a Jewish name too, but that its just not recorded?
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Sorry, just getting back to this now.
Back in the generation that my great-grandparents (and I assume yours) immigrated from Eastern Europe, Yiddish was the language used by Jews. Hebrew didn't become a popularly spoken language until the creation of Israel in the 1940's. It was a dead language like Latin before Israel revitalized it. Even today, my grandparents speak a little bit of Yiddish, and use lots of Yiddish words and phrases in their English, but they don't speak Hebrew - it's just not a colloquial language to them in the same way.
So, yes, it makes sense to me that an Austrian Jewish woman from the 1900's would have a Yiddish given name (Perl) that was changed to an English name (Paula or Pauline) when she came to Ellis Island. She may have had a Hebrew name for religious reasons, but that would not be a name that she was ever called by or used in real life. Also keep in mind that back then, girls didn't have bat mitzvahs. So she would not have needed a Hebrew name for her bat mitzvah like a boy would.
Hope this helps :)
----
Sorry, just getting back to this now.
Back in the generation that my great-grandparents (and I assume yours) immigrated from Eastern Europe, Yiddish was the language used by Jews. Hebrew didn't become a popularly spoken language until the creation of Israel in the 1940's. It was a dead language like Latin before Israel revitalized it. Even today, my grandparents speak a little bit of Yiddish, and use lots of Yiddish words and phrases in their English, but they don't speak Hebrew - it's just not a colloquial language to them in the same way.
So, yes, it makes sense to me that an Austrian Jewish woman from the 1900's would have a Yiddish given name (Perl) that was changed to an English name (Paula or Pauline) when she came to Ellis Island. She may have had a Hebrew name for religious reasons, but that would not be a name that she was ever called by or used in real life. Also keep in mind that back then, girls didn't have bat mitzvahs. So she would not have needed a Hebrew name for her bat mitzvah like a boy would.
Hope this helps :)
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