European nations gradually undertook legal endeavors with the aim of enforcing permanent surnames in the Jewish populations.
Part of the Alhambra Decree of 1492 contained a provision mandating fixed legal surnames for Sephardic Jews, but it was not until the 17th and 18th centuries that the rest of Europe followed suit.
Among the Ashkenazim, whose isolation from the mainstream majority population in the lands where they lived was more complete, the use of surnames only started to become common in most places in the eighteenth century.
On the other hand, the use of surnames became common very early among the Arabic-speaking Jews, who carried the custom into the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal).
Biblical names often take curious forms in the Iberian records, Isaac appearing as Acaz, Cohen as Coffen or Coffe, Yom-Ṭob as Bondia, Ẓemaḥ as Crescas and/or Cresquez.
Sephardic Jews who settled in Wallachia, Romania, coming from Trani, Italy, in the 1700s began to adopt Mitrani as their surname with a reference to their city.
Julio Caro Baroja, supporting José Leite de Vasconcelos' thesis in his "Anthroponymy Portuguesa, 4" argues, for example, that the surnames related to calle (English: "street"), that would be the equivalent in something like a ghetto, are of Jewish origin.
This is the case with Alonso Calle, treasurer on the first voyage of Christopher Columbus to the Americas, who was one of the settlers of Sephardic origin who comprised the crew.
Members adopted the Portuguese last name of Nunes da Costa and the Curiel family were ennobled by João IV of Portugal June 14, 1641.
Other surnames came from the man's trade such as Metzger (butcher) or Becker (baker), and a few derived from personal attributes, such as Joffe (beautiful), or special events in the family history.
On July 23, 1787, five years after the Edict of Tolerance, the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II issued a decree called Das Patent über die Judennamen which compelled the Jews to adopt German surnames.
[16] At the end of the 18th century after the Partition of Poland and later after the Congress of Vienna the Russian Empire acquired a large number of Jews who did not use surnames.
In medieval France the use of Biblical names appears to have been more extended, judging by the elaborate lists at the end of Gross's Gallia Judaica.
True surnames occurred, especially in the south, like Farissol, Bonet, Barron, Lafitte; but as a rule local designations were popular, such as "Samson of Sens", etc.
This phenomenon is especially common among Ashkenazic Jewish immigrants to Israel, because most of their surnames were taken recently, and many were imposed by authorities in Europe as a replacement for the traditional Hebrew patronymic form.
[17] Many other Jews were engaged in jewelry trading, opium and wine manufacturing, musicians, dancers, scavengers, peddlers and other professions that were generally deemed non-respectful.
[18] Many Jews adopted these professions as their surnames, such as Abrishami (silk maker), Almasi (diamond maker), Boloorian (crystal maker), Dehghan (wealthy farmer), Fallah (farmer), Zarrinkoob, Javaherian, Gohari (gold seller), Noghrehforosh (silversmith), Mesforosh (coppersmith), Sarraf, Sarrafan, Sarraf Nezhad, Banki (money changer), Zargar, Zarshenas (goldsmith), Hakakian or Hakkakian (connected with raw material, finished product or implements associated with that trade) for example Roya Hakakian.
[20] Some names may seem to be derived artificially, but can also refer to towns, e.g., Birnbaum (translated into "Peartree"), Rosenberg, Kornberg, Sommerfeld, Grünberg (hence Greenberg), Goldberg, and Rubinstein/Rubenstein.
Sephardic surnames, as already mentioned, are almost invariably local, as Almanzi, Arwa and Aruesti (from Hervas[21]), Bejarano (from Bejar), Castro, Carvajal, Espinosa/Spinoza, Silva, Leon, Navarro, Robles, Sevilla (Spanish), and Almeida, Carvallo, Lisbona, Miranda, Paiva, Pimentel, Porto, Pieba and Verdugo (Portuguese).
Others of the same kind are: Bialasik, Banks, Brauer, Breyer, and Brower ("brewer"); Spielmann ("musician"); Gerber ("tanner"); Goldschmit (Goldsmith); Silverschmit (Silversmith); Steinschneider ("stonecutter"); Graveur ("engraver"); Shoemark or Schumacher ("shoemaker"); Schuster ("cobbler"); Schneider, Schneiders, and Snyders ("tailor"; in Hebrew חייט, Chait/Khait (and at times Hyatt[citation needed])); Wechsler ("money-changer"); Zimmermann ("Carpenter").
There are other occupational names that are more distinctively related to Jewish culture and religious roles: Dayan (Jewish religious judge in a Beth din); Parnass, Derus, Gabbay, Singer, Cantor, Voorsanger, Chazan, Cantarini, from the synagogue officials who were so called; Shochet, Schaechter, Schechter, from the ritual slaughterer (also Schub or Shub: Hebrew acronym for shochet u-bodek, ritual slaughterer and kosher meat inspector); Shadkun, a marriage-broker; Rabe, Rabinowitz, Rabinovich, Rabinowicz, and Rabbinovitz, rabbis (occasionally Anglicized to Robinson or Robbins); Behar/Bahar, abbreviation of the Hebrew honorific title "ben kavod rabbi," which signifies "son of the honorable rabbi",[21] Benmohel (one variant of which is Mahler), son of one who performed circumcision, the sacred rite of Abraham.