Amber Bernstein

Travis   Friday, March 18, 2005, 00:15 GMT
Well, that Bernstein is a German surname is clearly obvious. But what's being referred to here is German Jewish surnames, which often have a tendency to take certain forms in practice, and to often end in certain words like "stein" and "berg", due to the types of patterns for surnames that many Jewish individuals in Germany and like chose for such when they were finally forced to adopt surnames (prior to which, only Christians were required to have).
Fredrik from Norway   Friday, March 18, 2005, 00:31 GMT
american nic:
I was just pointing out that the name sounds really funny if you know both English and German! But I suppose few people do oustide German speaking countries..
It is like calling your kid Rocky Mountain or Holly Wood!

Yes, there are some strange names in Norwegian too. Many Norwegian names are Norse originally and then they often mean something like "war lover" or "fighting girl" etc..
The common male Geir means "spear" for instance.
Bjørn (= bear) is also a common male name.

Vår (=spring) can be a female first name. Høst (=autumn) can be a last name, so if you have really crazy parents you can end up as Vår Høst (Spring Autumn)!
Ed   Friday, March 18, 2005, 01:19 GMT
Well, there's a way to tell Jewish names:
-man/-mann - Jewish/German
-sky/-ski - Jewish/Polish/Russian (non-Jewish)

Although, of course, there are exceptions.
Travis   Friday, March 18, 2005, 01:24 GMT
Ed, well, you can't rely upon that, because the use of -"man" there is if such is transcribed/transliterated from Yiddish written in Hebrew characters, but -"man" is also used in Dutch as well (as well as English, of course, but that's unlike to be confused here). As for -"ski" versus -"sky", that's just Polish surnames versus the most common ways of transcribing/transliterating Russian ones from Cyrillic.
Fredrik from Norway   Friday, March 18, 2005, 01:38 GMT
In Norway there are very very few Jews, because of several historical reasons (a cold country on the edge of civilization + they were forbidden to settle until the 1850s (Norway must be one of the few countries in the world whose first constitution (in 1814) was the most liberal of its age AND banned Jews (and Jesuits) from settling in the country!!!) + Jews were deported by the Nazi occupiers during WW2).

Therefore we Norwegians know were little about Jews, but are a bit curious. It is kind of amazing for us that so many people in regular American sitcoms and movies are Jews, like Ross and Monica in Friends and the main character in American Pie...its like fascinating! And we end up reading the credits and asking each other: "Hmm..David Bernstein...can he be Jewish....so exciting!"
Todd   Friday, March 18, 2005, 01:46 GMT
"But there are so many strange first names in the US, like:
Dean - why name a kid after the head priest of a cathedral?
Heather - why a moor bush?
Holly - why a Christmas decoration?
Clark - why an office worker? "


The US has a long and venerable tradition of naming males after English surnames: Clark, Dean, Todd, Taylor. This makes some sense when you consider that in centuries past, you didn't call people by their "Christian names", unless you were family. At prep schools and colleges, everyone greeted eachother chummily by eachother's surname, and many of these names stuck. In addition to this, they had a certain patrician allure to aspiring parents of the midling classes, and thus a tradition was born. This explains why so many American names are also professions.

As for Holly and Heather, they are two perfectly lovely plants, putting them in an older English tradition with "Hortense" and "Violet".

And, by the way, Holly is a "christmas decoration" no more than turkey comes from a supermarket shelf. It also has a life outside the tiny orbit of your holiday season.
Fredrik from Norway   Friday, March 18, 2005, 01:52 GMT
I know that the holly also has a life iutside the holiday season, 'cos I grew up beside a holly bush. But you only notice it at Christmas and when the red berries come out (some time before Christmas, I think?)

I once read that all the last names as first name stuff started when English gentry started giving their sons their mothers' maiden names as first names, like Trevor Percy or Percy Trevor.
Ed   Friday, March 18, 2005, 03:48 GMT
Yes, Travis, I agree that you can't rely on those rules but most of the time that's the case.