HUNGARIAN SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP (H-SIG)

A Jewish-Gen SIG
http://www.jewishgen.org/Hungary/




Jewish Naming Customs in Hungary from the Turn of the Twentieth Century until the Holocaust

Kinga Frojimovics
 The 23rd International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, July 20-25, 2003, Washington DC

Abstract

Jewish Naming Customs in Hungary From the Turn of the Twentieth Century Until the Holocaust

    My aim is to describe the fundamentally different naming customs of the Neology and the Orthodoxy in Hungary from the turn of the twentieth Century until the Holocaust. The differences can be seen not only in the family names and the first names, which is quite well researched, but also in the Hebrew/Yiddish names. My analysis is based upon the names in the registers of births of four important Jewish communities: the Orthodox Jewish communities of Eger and Paks, and the Neolog Jewish communities of Kecskemét and Zalaszentgrót.

    From the point of view of the history of the Jews in Hungary, the period I am concerned with can be divided into two sub-periods. The first, the second half of the era of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, was a period of assimilation promoted by the liberal Hungarian political elite. For example, a massive wave of name-magyarization characterized this period. In the second period, after the First World War, a Conservative-Christian political elite rose to power in Hungary. Against the previous assimilation-promoting policy, they adopted a nationalist, exclusive policy towards the religious and/or ethnic minorities of Hungary. I shall analyze the names accumulated in the four registers of births between 1890-1910 and between 1920-1940.

    The simultaneous examination of the Jewish first, family, and Hebrew names enables us to analyze complex historical processes within the Jewish society. While the first and family names inform us about the relationship between Jews and the surrounding society, the Hebrew names show the different relationship of the Jews belonging to the two major religious trends to the Jewish traditions.

Types of Names

Family Names

Table 1: Types of the Orthodox family names between 1890 and 1940

Types of Names

Total (No.)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Total (%)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Hebrew

51

37

14

3.1

2.6

5.9

Hungarian

97

85

12

5.9

6.0

5.1

German

1398

1202

196

85.0

85.5

82.7

Slav

95

81

14

5.9

5.8

5.9

Other

2

1

1

0.1

0.1

0.4

TOTAL

1643

1406

237

100.0

100.0

100.


Table 2: Types of the Neolog family names between 1890 and 1940

Types of Names

Total (No.)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Total (%)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Hebrew

40

32

8

2.8

2.8

3.5

Hungarian

326

258

68

23.3

21.9

29.8

German

970

829

141

69.0

70.4

61.8

Slav

42

37

5

3.0

3.1

2.3

Other

27

21

6

1.9

1.8

2.6

TOTAL

1405

1177

228

100.0

100.0

100.0

 
Hebrew family names
: The most frequent Hebrew family names are: Kohn and Lévi (or variations of Levi such as Lőwy, Lövy and Lövi). These two names make up the 80% of the total occurrences of Hebrew family names within the examined Orthodox communities, and  87,5% of the examined Neolog communities.

Slav family names
: The most frequent Slav family names consist of two parts. The first part is either a Hebrew/Yiddish name, or a Hebrew/Yiddish name with a diminutive suffix. The second part is an attached -vics/vits/vitz (somebody’s son). Examples: Davidovits (son of Dávid), Jontovics (son of Jom Tov), Lebovits (son of Leb), and Berkovics (son of Beer-ko), Herskovits (son of Hers/Hirs-ko), Moskovits (son of Mose-ko). Within the examined Orthodox communities these types of names make up the 44% of the total number of the family names. Within the examined Neolog communities these types of names make up the 33% of the total number of the family names.

German family names
: There are no dominant types. However, we can see that within the examined Orthodox communities the most frequent 3 names—Schwarcz, Weisz, and Klein—make up the 22% of the family names. Within the examined Neolog communities the most frequent 3 names—Weisz, Steiner, and Stein—make up the 11.5% of the family names.

Hungarian family names: There are no dominant types.

First Names (Given Names)

Table 3: Orthodox and Neolog first names between 1890 and 1940

Types of Names

Total (No.)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Total (%)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Orthodox

1656

1415

241

53.7

54.5

49.9

male

875

748

127

52.8

52.9

52.7

female

781

667

114

47.2

47.1

47.3

Neolog

1426

1179

247

46.3

45.5

50.6

male

772

636

136

54.1

53.9

55.1

female

654

543

111

45.9

46.1

44.9

TOTAL

3082

2594

488

100.0

100.0

100.0

 
Until the First World War

The 10 most frequent male first names listed according to their frequency are:  Sándor (142), József (117), László (82), István (82), Imre (78), Jenő (75), Gyula (50), Béla (50), Miklós (48), Ferencz (47), György (46), Pál (39). These names, or their variations,  were given to the 52% of the male babies.

The most frequent male first names given by the Orthodoxy are: Sándor (69), József (73), Jenő (39), Imre (36), Béla (32) and Miklós (32).

The most frequent male first names given by the Neology are: Sándor (73), József (63), István (62), László (51), Imre (42).

The 10 most frequent female first names, listed according to their frequency are:  Erzsébet (129), Ilona (122), Róza (106), Margit (101), Mária (65), Júlia (46), Gizella (44), Sarolta (36), Anna (34), Jolán (29). These names, or their variations,  were given to the 49.6% of the female babies. Concerning female first names there are no differences between the Orthodoxy and the Neology.

Inter-War Period

The most frequent male first names given by the Orthodoxy are: Sándor, György, László.

The most frequent male first names given by the Neology are: István, Sándor, József.

The most frequent female first names given by the Orthodoxy are: Éva, Judit, Róza.

The most frequent female first names given by the Neology are: Éva, Magda/Magdolna, Zsuzsanna.

Hebrew Names

Table 4: Orthodox and Neolog Hebrew names between 1890 and 1940

Types of Names

Total (No.)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Total (%)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Orthodox

1488

1259

229

57.2

58.9

49.5

Male

794

674

120

53.4

53.5

52.4

female

694

585

109

46.6

46.5

47.6

Neolog

1114

880

234

42.8

41.1

50.5

Male

609

483

126

54.7

54.9

53.8

female

505

397

108

45.3

45.1

46.2

TOTAL

2602

2139

463

100.0

100.0

100.0

 
The most frequent male Hebrew names given by the Orthodoxy listed according to their frequency
are: Jichak (32), Avraham (30), Joszef (30), Mose (28), Mordechaj (23), Jakov (22).

The most frequent male Hebrew names given by the Neology listed according to their frequency are: Avraham (44), Jichak (40), Joszef (35), Mose (34), Haim (22), Jakov (22).

The most frequent Yiddish names given by both trends were: Beer (Hebrew: Dov), Hirsch or Hers (Hebrew: Cvi), Leb (Hebrew: Arje) and Wolf (Hebrew: Zeev).

The most frequent female Hebrew names (they are Hebrew or Yiddish) given by the Orthodoxy listed according to their frequency are: Rahel (43), Eszter (41), Hana (38), Lea (37), Sara (35), Rivka (30) Mirjam (27), Gitl (25), Bela (23), Rezl (20), Jentl (13), Jitl (13), Mindl (13) Perl (12).

The most frequent female Hebrew names (they are Hebrew or Yiddish) given by the Neology listed according to their frequency are: Bela and Bile (68), Blima and Blime  (53), Bluma and Blumele  (47), Certl and Cetl (26), Bracha  (21), Brindl  (18), Buna (15), Ciperl (11).

 Article

        Bernát Munkácsi (1860-1937), the famous linguist and the inspector of the schools of the Neolog Jewish Community of Pest,[1] was an enthusiastic researcher of his family’s history. His daughter, Noémi Munkácsi, a well-known writer, wrote the following: “The jihus, the recording of the names and merits of one’s ancestors, the sense of belonging together as a family, were sacred notions in the eyes of my father.” Bernát Munkácsi believed that the key of the survival of the Jewish people is the possession of a historical self-knowledge. He viewed the writing of family histories and genealogical research in general, as a crucial device of obtaining such knowledge. He, himself, collected data about his large family, the Munk family, for decades. His son edited this monumental work, and it was published in 1939, two years after Bernát Munkácsi’s death. This work, which was published under the title of The Genealogy of the Munk Family, has an important place in the history of the Hungarian Jewish Genealogical research, since it appeared as the first volume of a series entitled The Genealogy of Hungarian Jewish Families, which was launched by the Hungarian Jewish Museum. According to Michael Silber, “the genealogy of the Munk family acquired an additional significance when from a work of private passion it was chosen to become the paradigm of the ‘genealogies of the Hungarian Jewish families.’”[2] Thus, Bernát Munkácsi’s view concerning the importance of genealogical research became official. Genealogy became an honored and scientifically accepted field of research and also an efficient device for strengthening Jewish identity.

        The topic of this presentation, naming customs, is closely related both to genealogical research and to the issue of Jewish identity. By following Bernát Munkácsi’s notion of connecting genealogical and historical research in order to deepen our knowledge of Jewish history, I aim at describing the fundamentally different naming customs of the two major Jewish religious trends, the Neology and the Orthodoxy, in Hungary from the turn of the twentieth Century until the Holocaust. The differences can be detected not only in the family names and the first names, which topics are quite well researched, but also in the Hebrew names. My analysis is based upon the names in the registers of births of four important Jewish communities: the Orthodox Jewish communities of Eger and Paks, and the Neolog Jewish communities of Kecskemét and Zalaszentgrót. These registers are kept in the Hungarian Jewish Archives. In the sample I have researched, thus, both the Neolog and the Orthodox trends are represented by two important Jewish communities. Therefore, while we can deduce the major differences between the attitudes of the trends concerning the issues of assimilation and Jewish tradition, we have to abstain from generalizing our findings concerning the naming customs as being characteristic of the entire trends.

        From the point of view of the history of the Jews in Hungary, the period I am concerned with can be divided into two sub-periods. The first, the second half of the era of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, was a period of assimilation promoted by the liberal Hungarian political elite. For example, a massive wave of name-Magyarization characterized this period. In the second period, after the First World War, a Conservative-Christian political elite rose to power in Hungary. Against the previous assimilation-promoting policy, they adopted a nationalist, exclusive policy towards the religious and/or ethnic minorities of Hungary. I shall analyze the names accumulated in the four registers of births between 1890 and 1910 and between 1920 and 1940.

        The simultaneous examination of the Jewish first, family, and Hebrew names enables us to analyze complex historical processes within Jewish society. While the first and family names inform us about the relationship between Jews and the surrounding society, the Hebrew names show the different attitudes of the Jews belonging to the two major religious trends towards Jewish traditions.

        The Jews in Hungary had to have a bipartite name consisting of a permanent family name and a first name from January, 1788 as a consequence of Joseph the Second’s famous decree.[3] Even though the decree ordered the Jews to acquire German first names, it is obvious that the majority of the naming committees responsible for the execution of the decree, and the Jews, themselves, interpreted it that way that the entire name should be German. Of course, the fact that the decree aimed at assisting the Germanization of the multinational Habsburg Empire supported this interpretation.[4] From then on, the Jews in Hungary had three names: a family name, a first name, and a so called Hebrew name. Let us examine these three types of names in the selected Neolog and Orthodox Jewish communities.

        At first, I shall analyze the family names. Among the three types of names the scrutiny of the family names offers the best opportunity to examine the relationship between the Jews and the surrounding society. Family names indicate both the extent of the inclination of the Hungarian society and its political elite towards assimilating the Jews, and the extent of the readiness of the Jews to assimilate. Name-Magyarization,[5] an action recorded by governmental offices, makes possible the assessment of these issues. The Magyarization of one’s name during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries can be seen as a declaration of one’s joining the Hungarian nation.

        Because of the famous and partly misinterpreted decree of Joseph the Second, the majority of the Jews in the territory of the Habsburg Empire had German family names since the end of the eighteenth century. In Hungary, however, as a consequence of the strong Hungarian national movement, the revolution and freedom fight of 1848/1849, and the liberal policies of the Hungarian elite after the Compromise of 1867, many Jews, like the members of other ethnic minorities, Magyarized their names. In the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, from the Compromise of 1867 until the end of the First World War, more than half of the people who Magyarized their names were Jewish. The choice of a Hungarian name unambiguously declared that the individual is part of the Hungarian nation.[6]

        The issue of name-Magyarization became a public concern in the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. In the 1880s the press and some civil organizations, and from the middle of the 1890s, also government organs supported it openly and explicitly. The government of Baron Dezső Bánffy (1895-1899) was the first to regard name-Magyarization as a political device for strengthening the Hungarian nation-state-character of the country, in which many ethnic minorities lived. Name-Magyarization in this era, however, was not only the result of governmental pressure, since this was a period of quick linguistic Magyarization too.[7]

        Already in the 1880’s, during the first wave of name-Magyarization, the differences had emerged between the kinds of newly chosen family names preferred by Jews and Christians. Christians preferred real or imaginary geographical names bearing the derivative suffix “i.” Nobles wore these kinds of names, although the names of the nobility usually ended with “y” rather than “i.”[8] By contrast, the Jews chose mainly “civil” names, such as names of various trades like Smith, Gardener, Miller (Kovács, Kertész, Molnár), common adjectives like Small, Black, White (Kis, Fekete, Fehér), names of various peoples like Kun, Polish, German (Kun, Lengyel, Német), proper names like Luke and Ladislaw (Lukács, László), and common nouns like hatchet bearer (Bárdos).

        Public opinion categorized the issue of name-Magyarization as a Jewish matter during the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Not only that the majority of those who Magyarized their names were Jews, but the two champions of the cause of name-Magyarization, Simon Telkes and Zoltán Lengyel, were Jews who converted to the Christian faith. Simon Telkes (1845-?) worked for the Statistical Office, and he founded the Central Society for Name-Magyarization (Központi Névmagyarosító Társaság) in 1880. This society was the civil organization which was the most active in promoting name-Magyarization in the era of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Its members took the floor in the parliament on several occasions promoting the cause of name-Magyarization. The central figure of the movement was Simon Telkes, who changed his name from Rubin to Telkes in 1881 and whom Franz Joseph ennobled in 1907. Telkes’ book, How to Magyarize Family Names (Hogyan magyarosítsuk a vezetéknevet) was published many times at the turn of the century. Zoltán Lengyel (1873-1940), a lawyer and politician  (Függetlenségi-, majd Kossuth-párti politikus), also gave wide publicity both in the press and in a book to the cause of name-Magyarization in the first decades of the twentieth century. Telkes, who consciously chose the strategy of full assimilation to the surrounding society, argues for name-Magyarization as follows:

By embracing Christianity through baptism, a person becomes a Christian and wins admittance into the Christian society. The same way, by Magyarizing his name, by embracing this “national baptism,” a Hungarian person with an alien name becomes completely and irrevocably part of the Hungarian society, becomes a true son of the nation. From social and patriotic points of view, this latter kind of baptism is even more important than the first kind, since while the first kind of baptism gives only a first name and a religion, the Magyarization of one’s name changes the entire family’s name. By that it strengthens our faith in one another, assists equality, in other words, it has an important ethical role in the gathering and keeping together of our nation. 

A Hungarian name is virtually a declaration of political faith for a Hungarian. The Hungarian identity and sensibility of a person who bears a Hungarian name cannot be doubted, since it is possible to change one’s Hungarian name into something else if one does not want to be a Hungarian any more.[9]

The politician Zoltán Lengyel argued for name-Magyarization within the framework of a democratic civil political program:

There is no creative work without democracy. There is no democracy without a civil society. There is no civil society without national unity. There is no national unity without the dominance of the national language. And the trade mark of the dominance of the national language is the dominance of national names.[10]

        The attitude towards the assimilation of ethnic groups viewed as alien by the Hungarian society, changed dramatically in the inter-war period. As a consequence of the Trianon Peace treaty, which followed the end of the First World War, Hungary lost more than two-thirds of its territory. Moreover, from being part of a multinational European power, it suddenly became a small nation-state surrounded by hostile countries. In the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the Hungarian nation could ensure its advantage in numbers, its hegemony that is, over other ethnic groups only by consciously assimilating—at least as far as linguistic and cultural Magyarization goes—those members of other ethnic groups who were willing to assimilate. After the First World War, after becoming a small nation-state, Hungary did not need this strategy any more. The majority of the ethnic groups that threatened the Hungarian hegemony in the previous era, lived in those territories which were cut off from the country at the Trianon Peace treaty. Both the Hungarian public and the political elite viewed the ethnic groups that had remained in Hungary—mostly Germans, Slovaks, Rumanians, and Jews—as internal enemies.

Thus, in the inter-war period, name-Magyarization was certainly not promoted officially. After 1919, for instance, the trustworthiness of every person who applied for Magyarizing his/her name was checked from the point of view of fidelity to the Hungarian nation. In other words, the applicant’s behavior during the revolutions of 1918/1919 was examined. Moreover, the applicant had to prove that he/she was not “unworthy of wearing a Hungarian name” [11] As a consequence of these restrictive measures, the name-Magyarizing movement strongly declined in the 1920s. The name-Magyarizing of the Jews declined even more sharply. While during the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Jews constituted more then 50% of the people who Magyarized their names, in the year of 1920, they constituted only 13% of the total name-Magyarizing population. This proportion decreased even further: between 1923 and 1929, Jews constituted only 2,2% of the total name-Magyarizing population. From 1938—the year of the codification of the first (anti)-Jewish law—every application for name-Magyarization by a Jew was turned down, even though the name-Magyarization of Jews was never officially prohibited.[12]

Contemporaries, such as the leading Hungarian statistician of the inter-war period, Alajos Kovács, also realized the decline of the name-Magyarization movement within the Jewish community. The anti-Semitic Alajos Kovács by mixing up causes and effects wrote the following: “As a consequence of the experiences of Communism [the Hungarian Soviet Republic (1919) – F.K.] a certain distrust concerning the Jewry can be sensed. Owing to this, the Jews, themselves, do not make efforts to Magyarize their names since the war.[13]

Keeping this historical background in mind, let us examine the assimilational strategies and tendencies of the Jews belonging to the two major Jewish religious trends in Hungary, as far as it can be detected in the process of name-Magyarization.

I established five categories according to the origin of the family names: Hebrew, Hungarian, German, Slav, and other. The next two tables show the types of family names worn by the Orthodox and the Neolog Jews of the examined Jewish communities:

Table 1: Types of the Orthodox family names between 1890 and 1940

Types of Names

Total (No.)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Total (%)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Hebrew

51

37

14

3.1

2.6

5.9

Hungarian

97

85

12

5.9

6.0

5.1

German

1398

1202

196

85.0

85.5

82.7

Slav

95

81

14

5.9

5.8

5.9

Other

2

1

1

0.1

0.1

0.4

TOTAL

1643

1406

237

100.0

100.0

100.0


Table 2: Types of the Neolog family names between 1890 and 1940

Types of Names

Total (No.)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Total (%)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Hebrew

40

32

8

2.8

2.8

3.5

Hungarian

326

258

68

23.3

21.9

29.8

German

970

829

141

69.0

70.4

61.8

Slav

42

37

5

3.0

3.1

2.3

Other

27

21

6

1.9

1.8

2.6

TOTAL

1405

1177

228

100.0

100.0

100.0

 The two Tables show that the overwhelming majority of the family names of the Jews in Hungary was German, even in the period stretching from the turn of the century until the Holocaust. More than 85% of the family names in the examined Orthodox communities was German. Within the Neolog communities the proportion of the German family names was also high; it was almost 70% of the total number of family names. There are, however, significant differences between the two trends.

After the German names, the most frequent ones were the Hungarian and the Slav names among the Orthodox family names. Both of them made up about 6% of the family names. The family names with Hebrew origin made up the 3.1% of the names. Within the examined Neolog communities we can see that the order of frequency of the family names according to their origins is different. After the German names, the Hungarian family names were the most frequent. They made up almost one-fourth of the family names. The Hebrew family names constituted 3 % of the names and the Slav names made up 2.8% of the names. It is obvious, thus, that the Neologs Magyarized their names more frequently than the Orthodox families. In other words, the Neologs used more frequently the means of name-Magyarization to demonstrate their readiness to assimilate than the Orthodox Jews.

If we compare the decades of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy with the inter-war period, the difference between the two trends becomes even more pronounced. While in the inter-war years the proportion of the German family names slightly decreased within the Orthodox communities, the proportion of the Hungarian names also decreased (from 6% to 5.1%). The proportion of the Slav names remained unchanged, and the proportion of the Hebrew names significantly increased (from 2.5% to 5.9%). This does not mean, of course, that the families bearing German or Hungarian names have changed their names into Hebrew ones. Most probably, more new people joined the examined Orthodox Jewish communities who had Hebrew or Slav family names, than German or Hungarian names. It is clear, however, that name-Magyarization became even less popular within the examined Orthodox communities between the two world wars than in the previous period, in which it was already markedly less popular in their circles than within the examined Neolog communities.

In the case of the Neologs we can witness an opposite tendency concerning Hungarian family names. Between the two world wars, the proportion of the German family names significantly decreased from 70.4% to 61.8%. The proportion of the Slav names also decreased slightly from 3.1% to 2.3%. The proportion of the Hebrew family names slightly increased, from 2.8% to 3.5%, and drastically increased the proportion of the Hungarian names, from 21.9% to 29.8%. Thus, we can observe, that in the inter-war period almost one-third of the Neologs wore Hungarian family names. This signifies that the Neologs were still inclined to follow the policy of assimilation in a predominantly rejecting social milieu.

Let us now briefly assess the various types of family names. The most frequent Hebrew family names were: Kohn and Lévi (or variations of Levi such as Lőwy, Lövy and Lövi).  These two names made up the 80% of the total occurrences of Hebrew family names within the examined Orthodox communities, and  87,5% of the examined Neolog communities. Besides the two most frequent names, Daniel, Katz, and Sofer also appeared a few times. Sofer was the name of the Rabbi dynasty of Eger.

The most frequent Slav family names in both the Neolog and the Orthodox communities consisted of two parts. The first part is either a Hebrew/Yiddish name, or a Hebrew/Yiddish name with a diminutive suffix. The second part is an attached -vics/vits/vitz (somebody’s son), such as Davidovits (son of Dávid), Jontovics (son of Jom Tov), Lebovits (son of Leb), and Berkovics (son of Beer-ko), Herskovits (son of Hers/Hirs-ko), Moskovits (son of Mose-ko). Within the examined Orthodox communities these types of names made up the 44% of the total number of the family names. Within the examined Neolog communities these types of names made up the 33% of the total number of the family names. Therefore, the majority of the Slav names can be viewed as Hebrew names, since one can recognize their Hebrew/Yiddish bases. The name “Pollák,” which means Polish, was widespread in both trends.

There were no dominant family names among the German and the Hungarian names. They were remarkably diverse. However, we can see that within the examined Orthodox communities the most frequent 3 names—Schwarcz, Weisz, and Klein—made up the 22% of the family names. Within the examined Neolog communities the most frequent 3 names—Weisz, Steiner, and Stein—made up the 11.5% of the family names. The Hungarian family names were even more diverse than the German ones. There were 49 different Hungarian family names in the Orthodox communities. 84% of these names—41 names in all—surfaced trice or less frequently in the registers of births. In the case of the Neologs, the 75% of the 118 Hungarian family names—89 name in all—appeared trice or less frequently in the registers.

Now let us turn our attention to the first names or given names.

Table 3: Orthodox and Neolog first names between 1890 and 1940

Types of Names

Total (No.)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Total (%)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Orthodox

1656

1415

241

53.7

54.5

49.9

male

875

748

127

52.8

52.9

52.7

female

781

667

114

47.2

47.1

47.3

Neolog

1426

1179

247

46.3

45.5

50.6

male

772

636

136

54.1

53.9

55.1

female

654

543

111

45.9

46.1

44.9

TOTAL

3082

2594

488

100.0

100.0

100


        The third table calls attention to an interesting and unexpected demographic phenomenon. We have 3082 first names from the period between 1890 and 1940. Thus, 3082 babies were born alive and received names in the four Jewish communities under scrutiny. Almost 54% of these babies were born in the two Orthodox communities. We can see that in the two examined decades of the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, between 1890 and 1910, more babies were born in the Orthodox communities than in the Neolog ones. Almost 55% of the babies were born in the Orthodox communities. This fits our expectations. However, in the inter-war period, we can detect an opposite tendency. Slightly more children were born in the two Neolog communities than in the two Orthodox ones. The 50.6% of the babies were born in the Neolog Jewish communities of Kecskemét and Zalaszentgrót in the inter-war period. Unexpectedly, thus, in the period between the two world wars, the natural growth within the examined Orthodox and the Neolog communities was about the same. It is also interesting in terms of demography, that all in all, in both examined periods, and in the communities of both trends more boys were born than girls. As far as naming customs are concerned, we can see that both the Neolog and the Orthodox parents used more different female first names than male first names. In the two Orthodox communities we can find 104 different male first names, and 107 female first names. In the Neolog communities there were 80 different male first names and 91 female first names.

The 10 most frequent male first names listed according to their frequency were:  Sándor (142), József (117), László (82), István (82), Imre (78), Jenő (75), Gyula (50), Béla (50), Miklós (48), Ferencz (47), György (46), Pál (39). These names, or their variations, were given to the 52% of the male babies. In both trends, the most frequently given names were Sándor (O 69, N 73) and József (O 73, N 63). Within the Orthodox communities, Jenő (39), Imre (36), Béla (32) and Miklós (32) followed the most frequent two names. These names, which were fashionable in contemporary Hungary, were given to 30% of the Orthodox boys. By contrast, in the Neolog communities, the two most frequent names were followed by István (62), László (51) and Imre (42). These names are the names of members of the first Hungarian royal dynasty, the Árpád dynasty, who became sainted during the middle ages. Thus, the Neologs show a preference for giving their children the names of the prominent characters of Christian Hungarian history. These names have a special Hungarian national connotation. These names also surface within the Orthodox communities, but the Neologs display an unmistakable preference for them. This is in complete harmony with the tendency which we have seen concerning the phenomenon of name-Magyarization. The Neologs resorted to the external signs of cultural assimilation more than the Orthodox Jews did. (The first five most frequent names—Sándor, József, István, László, Imre—were given to the 38% of the boys in the two Neolog communities in the examined periods.

The 10 most frequent female first names, listed according to their frequency were:  Erzsébet (129), Ilona (122), Róza (106), Margit (101), Mária (65), Júlia (46), Gizella (44), Sarolta (36), Anna (34), Jolán (29). These names, or their variations, were given to the 49.6% of the female babies between 1890 and 1940.

It is striking that the 5 most frequent female first names, both collectively and severally in the two trends, are typical Christian names connected to famous saints and to the mother of Jesus. Besides the non trend-specific dominance of these names, there are trend-specific characteristics as well. Three female first names, Jolán (21-8), Eszter (19-5) and Sarolta (31-5), were almost exclusively given by Orthodox parents. Two other names, Irma (17-3) and Katalin (21-6), on the other hand, were much more popular among Neolog parents than among Orthodox ones.

Since 85% of the examined births happened in the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, between 1890 and 1910, the most frequent first names mirror mainly the naming customs of that period. In the inter-war period, we can find naming customs which markedly differ from the previous period. It is true about both trends that none of the names became as dominant as the male first names: Sándor and József, and the female first names: Erzsébet and Ilona, were in the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Both trends employed more diverse names. However, we can still see that there were differences between the two trends. In the inter-war period, the most frequent male first names among the Orthodox Jews were Sándor, György, and László. By contrast, the most frequent male first names among the Neologs were still István, Sándor, and József. In the case of the Orthodox communities, we could see, thus, that the names had changed. They became more Hungarian to a certain extent. Within the Neolog communities, the dominance of the first names well-known from the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy remained unchanged, still, there occurred a significant change. The name “István” became the most popular male first name. Thus, even though we have much less data from the inter-war period than from the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, we can infer that the inclination of the Neologs towards assimilation did not much decrease in the midst of their now openly hostile surroundings.

In the inter-war period, the three most frequent female first names given by the Orthodox parents were Éva, Judit and Róza. Whereas, the most frequent female first names given by the Neologs were Éva, Magda or Magdolna, and Zsuzsanna. With the exception of “Róza,” thus, the names which were popular in the previous period had disappeared. They were replaced in both trends by such Biblical names that sounded familiar in Hungarian as well.

Finally, let us examine the naming customs concerning Hebrew or Synagogue-al names within the examined Jewish communities.

Table 4: Orthodox and Neolog Hebrew names between 1890 and 1940

Types of Names

Total (No.)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Total (%)

1890-1910

1920-1940

Orthodox

1488

1259

229

57.2

58.9

49.5

Male

794

674

120

53.4

53.5

52.4

female

694

585

109

46.6

46.5

47.6

Neolog

1114

880

234

42.8

41.1

50.5

Male

609

483

126

54.7

54.9

53.8

female

505

397

108

45.3

45.1

46.2

TOTAL

2602

2139

463

100.0

100.0

100.0

By comparing the third and the fourth tables we can see that while we know the first names of  more than 1600 (1656) Orthodox babies, we know the Hebrew names of only about 1500 (1488) of them. The Hebrew names of 11% of the Orthodox babies were not recorded in the registers of births. In the case of the Neologs, the situation is even worse. The Hebrew names of 22% of the Neolog babies were not recorded in the registers of births. We have 1426 first names and only 1114 Hebrew names.

The most frequent male Hebrew names are almost without exception Biblical names connected to the period of the Patriarchs. The most frequent male Hebrew names given by the Orthodoxy listed according to their frequency are: Jichak (32), Avraham (30), Joszef (30), Mose (28), Mordechaj (23), and Jakov (22). Whereas, the most frequent male Hebrew names given by the Neology listed according to their frequency are: Avraham (44), Jichak (40), Joszef (35), Mose (34), Haim (22), and Jakov (22). These names were given to the one fifth of the Orthodox boys and to the one third of the Neolog boys. Thus, the trends are not very different in this respect.

The picture is different, however, if we consider the so called double names, consisting of two names. Double names have a long tradition in the Hebrew naming customs. Many double names were inspired by the Tanach. The most famous among them are those which are connected to the blessing of Jacob, that is when Jacob blessed his twelve sons. Customary double names which originate in Jacob’s blessing, for example, are Jehuda Arje,[14] or Jehuda Leb in its Yiddish form; Naftali Cvi,[15] or Naftali Hirsch in its Yiddish form; and Benjamin Zeev,[16] or Benjamin Wolf in its Yiddish form. Other double names, which also have their origins in the Bible, emphasize life by adding the name “Haim” to another name. Such double name is Joszef Haim[17] originating in the story in which Jacob’s sons tell the aged patriarch that not only Joseph is alive but he is doing very well in Egypt. Another wide-spread double name containing Haim is Jakov Haim,[18] which originates in the pasuk that tells us that Jacob lived in Egypt for 17 years. The double name, Jakov Joszef,[19] originates from the beginning of the story in which Joseph is sold by his brethren.

We can find these double names among the names of the Jews of Hungary belonging to both trends. However, from the names of the four examined Jewish communities we can extrapolate that the Orthodox Jews liked double names much more than the Neologs. Whereas 38% of the Orthodox boys wore double names, only the 25% of the Neolog boys were given such names.

Double names seem to be popular not only because of their Biblical origins, but because they allowed parents to give their children both Hebrew and Yiddish names. Almost one third of the Orthodox double names contained at least one Yiddish element. ((68 double names, 32 %)) 16% of the double names of the Neolog boys was Hebrew-Yiddish compounds. There were 19 such double names in my sample. Parents belonging to both trends gave Yiddish names which had only one component. If we add to the Hebrew-Yiddish double names the single-component Yiddish names, we can see an even more significant difference between the trends. 29% of the Orthodox boys wore Yiddish or partly Yiddish names. By contrast, only 14% of the Neolog boys had Yiddish or partly Yiddish names. The most frequent Yiddish names given by both trends were: Beer (in Hebrew: Dov), Hirsch or Hers (in Hebrew: Cvi), Leb (in Hebrew: Arje) and Wolf (in Hebrew: Zeev).

In the case of the female Hebrew names, there are traditionally more Yiddish names than Hebrew ones. The reason for this can be found in the fact that women, who were excluded from the active part of the services in the Synagogue such as aliah needed their Hebrew names much less frequently than men. In the examined Orthodox communities, the first seven most frequent female Hebrew names—Rahel (43), Eszter (41), Hana (38), Lea (37), Sara (35), Rivka (30), and Mirjam (27)—were Biblical Hebrew names, but the second seven most frequent female Hebrew names were Yiddish: Gitl (25), Bela (23), Rezl (20), Jentl (13), Jitl (13), Mindl (13), and Perl (12). These 14 names made up more than half , 53%, of the names of the girls.

In the Neolog communities, the dominance of the Yiddish names among the Hebrew names were even more pronounced. The most frequent female Hebrew names given by the Neologs listed according to their frequency were: Bela and Bile (68), Blima and Blime  (53), Bluma and Blumele  (47), Certl and Cetl (26), Bracha  (21), Brindl  (18), Buna (15), Ciperl (11). All of these names are in Yiddish, except Bracha, which is a Hebrew non-Biblical name. The first Biblical Hebrew Hebrew name, Dina, is at the eleventh place. It occurs only nine times. 

Within the examined Orthodox communities, male and female Hebrew names from the Tanach, chiefly the names of the patriarchs and the matriarchs, were wide-spread and popular. By contrast, although the examined Neolog communities preferred Hebrew Hebrew names for men, for women Neologs preferred Yiddish Hebrew names. 82% of the Neolog girls were given Yiddish, or partly Yiddish names. (414-91). By contrast, 51% of the Orthodox girls had Yiddish or partly Yiddish Hebrew names, and 49 % had Hebrew Hebrew names.

Double names or name pairs were popular among females as well. “Duvris Dvora” (9) and “Dvora Eszter” (8) were the most popular names within the Neolog communities. Among the Orthodox Jews, the most popular double name was Haja Sara. It surfaced 10 times, while other double names appeared only twice. Like many male double names, the name “Haja Sara” comes from the Tanach. Its origin is connected to the weekly portion that begins with the words “Haje Sara.”[20]

Now we can summarize our findings. The two major Jewish religious trends in Hungary, the Orthodoxy and the Neology, followed very different strategies concerning assimilation. Orthodox Jews met the minimal requirements of assimilation, the majority of them wore Hungarian first names already in the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. However, Orthodox Jews displayed radically less readiness to Magyarize their family names than the Neologs. In other words, the Orthodox Jews were more reluctant to exhibit this highly visible sign of assimilation requiring an official-administrational process, than the Neologs. The Neologs, by contrast, not only participated in the name-Magyarizing movement much more actively then their Orthodox co-religonists, but they preferred to give their children first names signaling their belonging to the Hungarian nation even in the inter-war period, when the surrounding society became increasingly hostile. From the Hebrew or Synagogue-al names we could see that the trends had different attitudes towards the Jewish religious and cultural traditions. Orthodox Jews usually gave their male children Hebrew names from the Tanach or rather from the Torah. A significant portion of the Orthodox men, however, wore double Hebrew names one element of which was in Yiddish. The widespread  use of Yiddish components in the Hebrew name of Orthodox men used day by day in the Synagogue signifies that the element of Jewish culture which was connected to Yiddish was also a living tradition in some way. In the case of Neolog men we have found almost exclusively Hebrew Hebrew names. Contrary to the Orthodox naming custom, the Neologs gave Yiddish Hebrew names to most of the girls. Probably we have this abundance of Yiddish female Hebrew names, because for the Neologs, who were less well versed in the Tanach and the traditions than the orthodox Jews, it was easier to interpret Yiddish names with the help of their knowledge of German. They still preferred to give traditional Hebrew Hebrew names to the men who prayed in the synagogue even if not every single day. Hebrew-Yiddish double names as Hebrew names appear much less frequently among the Neologs. For the Neolog Jews religion and everyday life were separate realms, and the Yiddiskeit, those parts of the Jewish tradition that were connected to Yiddish disappeared from their lives almost without a trace. Neologs in Hungary, similarly to the liberal Jews in other countries, became part of the culture of their surroundings by the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Neologs, at least according to their self-assessment, became culturally and nationally Hungarian, that is, Hungarians of the Mosaic faith. This is mirrored clearly in the naming customs of the Neologs, especially if we compare and contrast them to the naming customs of the Orthodox trend.


[1] In Hungary there were three Jewish religious trends: the Neolog, the Orthodox, and the Status Quo Ante. The Neolog was the most liberal among them.

[2] Michael K. Silber, “Utószó”, in: Meir Ávráhám Munk, Életem történetei. (Budapest –Jeruzsálem: Múlt és Jövő, 2002) p. 344.

[3] Joseph the Second issued the decree No. 10426/aul. on the 27th of  July in 1787.

[4] See the analysis of the decree in Viktor Karády – István Kozma, Név és nemzet. Családnév-változtatás, névpolitika és nemzetiségi erőviszonyok Magyarországon a feudalizmustól a kommunizmusig. (Budapest: Osiris, 2002) pp. 21-23. [from now on Karády-Kozma, Név és nemzet]

[5] “Name-Magyarization” signifies the changing of one’s foreign family name into a Hungarian one.

[6] During the peak period of the name-Magyarizing movement, viz. during the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, about 74500 applications for name-Magyarization were approved by the authorities. 71800 of these applications were approved between 1881 and 1918. (Karády-Kozma, Név és nemzet pp. 49, 53.)

[7] About two million people went through the process of linguistic Magyarization in the second half of the 19th century and in the first decade of the 20th century. 77% of the Jews in Hungary declared that his/her mother tongue is Hungarian in the national census at 1910. 23% of the Germans, 17% of the Slovaks, 19% of the Croats and Serbs, and 5% of the Rumanians in Hungary declared the same. (Karády-Kozma, Név és nemzet p. 51.)

[8] Karády-Kozma, Név és nemzet p. 64.

[9] Simon Telkes, Hogy magyarosítsuk a vezetékneveket? (Budapest: M. Kir. Állami nyomda, 19064) p. 1.

[10] Zoltán Lengyel, Magyar névkönyv. (Budapest, 1917) p. 213.

[11] Karády-Kozma, Név és nemzet p. 178.

[12] Karády-Kozma, Név és nemzet p. 137.

[13] Alajos Kovács, “A nevek és névváltoztatások statisztikája”, Magyar Statisztikai Szemle, 1930:3, p. 239.

[14] The origin of the double name: גור אריה יהודה מטרף בני עלית כרע רבץ כאריה וכלביא מי יקימנו .(בראשית מט, ט)

[15] The origin of the double name: נפתלי אילה שלחה הנתן אמרי שפר .(בראשית מט, כא)

[16] The origin of the double name: בנימין זאב יטרף בבקר יאכל עד ולערב יחלק שלל .(בראשית מט, כז)

[17] The origin of the double name: ויגדו לו לאמר עוד יוסף חי וכי הוא משל בכל ארץ מצרים .(בראשית מה, כו)

[18] The origin of the double name: ויחי יעקב בארץ מצרים שבע עשרה שנה ויהי ימי יעקב שני חייו שבע שנים וארבעים ומאת שנה .(בראשית מז, כח)

[19] The origin of the double name: אלה תלדות יעקב יוסף בן שבע עשרה שנה .(בראשית לז, ב)

[20] The origin of the double name: ויהיו חיי שרה מאה שנה ועשרים שנה ושבע שנים שני חיי שרה .(בראשית כג, א)




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Last updated November 27, 2003.