The female name that is phonetically "Manya" is the first name of my husband's paternal grandmother, who lived in Galicia.

We, too, do not know what the origin of the name is and have wondered about it, since we thought it did not seem to resonate as a Jewish name.

Autosomal DNA testing does confirm, however, that three of her grandchildren, who are children of two of her male children, are categorized by the DNA vendors as Ashkenazi Jews at a very high percentage.

Ellen Zyroff