Romanian names and Hebrew names?

Question

I am looking for records of my relatives that were Jewish in Iasi Romania.Are the names Iosub and Fuga Romanian first names or Hebrew names?Is Smil the same as Samuel?

Answer 1

Many of the Jews in Romania have taken Romanian names throughout history; Iosub, Fuga or Smil don't sound Romanian to me. Smil is not the same as Samuel, as in "XY" is not the same as "XXY". Check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_...

Answer 2

Romanians tended to take their names from the Bible, so having a "Hebrew-sounding" name and being from Romania doesn't mean they were Jewish. They could very well have been Catholic or Romanian Orthodox.

Iosub would be like the English Joseph.

Smil could have been a nickname for Samuel, but it's more likely an Muslim name. Part of that area was part of the Ottoman empire and Muslims migrated into the area and brought their linguistics with them. I pulled up just that first name and more than half of the people with it were Ottoman Turks, though more than a handful were Hebrew.

Fuga is originally Greek, but as Christianity spread north out of Constantinople, the names went with them. The name is even found in Scandinavia. I find it a lot in Romania and Lithuania and it is also found amongst Jewish women. It's not the most common name, but it's also not isolated to one religion.

Answer 3

One good place to check is the Jewish Given Name Database at: http://www.jewishgen.org/galicia/GNDB/sr... (I don't know if it works w/o joining the site, but joining is free.)

When I put in "Smil" and Romanian, one hit is "Shmil" which is Yiddish for Samuel from Numbers 34:20

The closest possible hit to Fuga would be some version of Feyga (means "bird") which is a female given name and sometimes the name Tsipora  is used, too.  If this proves to be the actual name than the legal orgin listed is Exodus 2:16.

There is a Romania Database on JewishGen w/ 300,000-400,000 records for Romania and Moldova, from a variety of sources, including: voter lists, census records, business directories, vital records, diplomatic records, yizkor books, and others. Go to the JewishGen Romania Database at: http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Roman...

The folks at JewishGen's Romania SIG should be able to help you, too.  The people there are researching Romania (including Moldova, Bessarabia and Bukovina).