Jewish Surnames
in Articles Published in the Bi-Annual Periodical Sefarad
Index Prepared by Mathilde Tagger
The Arias B. Montano Institute is part of Spain's Superior Council of Scientific Research
(
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas). In 1941 the Institute began
publishing a bi-annual academic periodical entitled
Sefarad that continues to this day. The journal was first dedicated
to the research of Jews in Spain upto the 1492 Expulsion and occasionally a bit beyond that date. Several years ago its
focus was enlarged and it presently also covers Hebrew studies and Mediterranean Jews.
Searching in the still relatively unexplored Spanish archives like the archives of the Crown of Aragon, the various
regional Notarial Archives, and similar, Spanish university scholars produced articles based on these valuable primary
sources. Frequently, authors included lists of names encountered in the documents they studied - list of inhabitants,
property owners etc. These records are the indelible proof of the existence of surnames already in use in medieval Spain,
a fact that provides further evidence of Sephardic roots. Nevertheless, one has to take into account that not all the Spanish
archives have been studied and the present compilation of surnames used in medieval Spain is by necessity only partial and
eclectic because it is based on the articles published. For example, major Jewish population centers like Cordoba, Granada
and others studied elsewhere are greatly under-represented.
The present index covering articles published in Sefarad articles between 1941 and 2007, includes the surname,
given name, place and year of occurrence and the reference of the article in which it appears. It includes a total of
more than 2,000 surnames.
Some conclusions can be learnt from this index:
- Name spelling was not yet fixed and the surnames are found under various orthographic forms or with
various prefixes
- Some surnames composed of two words may be found either as a single word or as two words
- Patronymic names (Isaac ben Yacov ben Yehuda) seem to have disappeared among Sephardic Jews
- Similarly toponymic or place surnames are rare. Many of today's toponymic Sephardic surnames appear to have been
adopted after the expulsion, first as nicknames.
We intend to publish more lists of names borne by Spanish Jews compiled from other valuable sources.