Dear Hungary SIG,

I asked Dr. Nathan Reiss [Rutgers University], for his thoughts about the origin of Meixler as a Jewish
surname.

Attached is a synopsis of his thoughts. I was wondering if anyone on the Hungary SIG had any comments.
Below is a record of a correspondence between Dr. Nathan Reiss and myself on the possible origin of the
surname Meixler.

Lew Meixler


Dear Dr. Reiss,

If you have any thoughts about my last name, I would appreciate what you think. I have researched it back
to the early 1800s in Hungary, and the spelling was always Meixler, Maixler, so some variant on that.

Dear Lew,
As for your name, I don't know, but ever since I first saw it I've been curious about its origins. I had been
guessing that itwas old Spanish. I just checked my little book of Jewish names and theclosest name that it
has is Meisel, which it suggests is a patronymicname, "an affectionate diminutive of Mordechai".or from
"Moshe". If I had to guess, I'd suggest the latter, and that it came>from a place where the letter "x" was
pronounced as "sh".How does your family pronounce the name?

Sincerely,
Nathan


Dear Nathan,

Thanks for the thoughts on my name. You are the second person who mentioned old spanish.
It was always pronounced Mike-slur as far as Iknow. The family came >from a town in Hungary - Miskolc. I was able to trace it back to about 1807 there.

Lew


Lew,

I'll bet the place name Miskolc(s?) is theanswer. I once had a summer job in a place where everyone else but mespoke Hungarian, so I learned a bit about the language. Although neither the"c" or "cs" sounds are pronounced like an English"x", it's plausible that the last part of the town's name wasmispronounced as a "ks" by non-Hungarians. So a person >from Miskolcswould be a Miskolcser, which would be pronounced as "Miskolxer",which would explain how the "x" got in there. Then it probably wassimplified to its current form. This could well have happened while your familywas still in Hungary, because it was under foreign rule for so much of itshistory.

Nathan,

Dear Hungary SIG
This is a really interesting theory. Do you think it is correct?
Lew Meixler

Dear Lew,

Being a native speaker of Hungarian and a Jewish genealogist my answer is
definitely: NO!
Miskolc is spelled as Miskolc and not as Miskolcs. A person >from Miskolc
(pronounced as Meeshkolts) would be referred to in German and Yiddish as
'Miskolcer' (Meeshkoltser). Someone not knowing any bit of Hungarian (whose
mother tongue had been Yiddish or German), might have pronounced it as
(Meehskolker) without any s after the 'k'.

Regards,

Karesz Vandor
Genealogist/Historian/Guide

Hungarian Roots
web: www.hungarianroots.com
e-mail: info@...







Subject: Question on a theory on the origin of the surname Meixler
From: lmeixler@...
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 21:18:54 -0600 (CST)
X-Message-Number: 6

Dear Hungary SIG,

Lew,

I'll bet the place name Miskolc(s?) is theanswer. I once had a summer job in
a place where everyone else but mespoke Hungarian, so I learned a bit about
the language. Although neither the"c" or "cs" sounds are pronounced like an
English"x", it's plausible that the last part of the town's name
wasmispronounced as a "ks" by non-Hungarians. So a person >from Miskolcswould
be a Miskolcser, which would be pronounced as "Miskolxer",which would
explain how the "x" got in there. Then it probably wassimplified to its
current form. This could well have happened while your familywas still in
Hungary, because it was under foreign rule for so much of itshistory.

Nathan,

Dear Hungary SIG
This is a really interesting theory. Do you think it is correct?
Lew Meixler

i would say the short answer is not likely - at least not in hungarian.

miskolc is pronounced meesh-koltz, and even if it were reversed in
that way, meek-sholtz would not be written with an x, which, as far
as i know, is only used in loanwords in hungarian. (miksa is the
hungarian version of maximilian.)

likewise, i don't believe that yiddish uses x, as such. (for
example, FUCHS would be written peh-vav-kuf-samech?)

and the -ler suffix is usually an occupation. the similarity to
WECHSLER (origin: old german for money changer) might be a clue.

but that's just my opinion.


....... tom klein, toronto