I greatly support the initiative of Roger Lustig from
the GER-SIG
to record the unique surnames we have discovered and
their geographical origin "as far as we know". I would
rather post them on one of the lists so they will
enter to eternity in the Jewishgen or the SIG
archives.
My first batch >from my own experience and resesarch:
KOENIGSBUCH- my maternal family. All from
Brzesko,Galicia.
LANDESDORFER-all >from Krakow.Some married to my
maternal family.
LAMENSDORF-all >from Bochnia,Krakow,Tarnow.
Happy Hanukkah.
Jacob Rosen
Jerusalem

Jacob is way ahead of me on this one! I had only posted my request to
GerSIG, but I'll repeat it here:

The subject line refers, not to hilarious or ghastly names, but
literally to those that occur only once: that is, in exactly one
family. In my research I've encountered quite a few of these, among them:

ARONADE/ARNADE
UCKO or UCKU
LOEBINGER
TROPLOWITZ
LAQUER or LAQUEUR
PRINGSHEIM
MUEHSAM

...all >from Silesia, and all fairly large families.

[Added to the Silesian list already: ALGAZE, BIELSCHOWSKY, and LICHTWITZ]

Any such assertion has to be qualified by "as far as I know" or similar
disclaimers, because a counterexample could be lurking anywhere. For
our purposes the phrase "among Jews" would also be an appropriate
qualifier. One could further limit the assertion of uniqueness to a
region and time period, for example, the DRESDNER family of Upper
Silesia in the 19thC. But each of those listed above belongs to just
one Jewish family, as far as I know.

Why does any of this matter? Convenience, mostly. If someone has
substantially researched a name and the family it represents, including
database searches and even Googling, and the surname seems to be unique,
its inclusion on a list of such names might be of great use to others,
and could help the original researcher too, because the prospect of a
"sure thing" might move otherwise shy correspondents to make contact.

If you'd like, send me the cases you know of, preferably with some
indication of the region where the name was first recorded (as far as
you know). I'd be glad to collate a list and post it for discussion.
[end of copied posting]

Response to this query has been good so far. All submissions and
suggestions welcome!

Roger Lustig Princeton, NJ

Abuwasta Abuwasta wrote:

My unique name is: GESMAI/GESMAY/GESCHMAY/GESCHAI
The legend has it that we are descendent of a Spanish Jew who married an
ABRABANEL young lady on the fly >from the Spanish inquisition. This Family
arrived to Central Europe: there are currently a few family trees 2 of which

from the same city: Ronsperg now called Pobovice in CZ.

These trees are not connected yet as far as I know and they arrive back till
the beginning of the 18 century in the same city.
The other part is >from north Hungary the town called Pilisvorosvar where
they appeared in the beginning of the 19 century.
As far as we all know we are all related the question is only how.

Nava Giron
Israel

SHELNITZ.
The earliest known record of this name is in Krasnoye at the turn of the
(20th) century -- my GGF Chayim Leib Shelnitz and his siblings.
All current Shelnitzes (that are known to us) are descendants of either
Chayim Leib or his brother Aizik. And there really aren't many; my father
(who emigrated to Israel in 1969) has a few cousins in the US, and that's it.
My brothers and I haven't done much for perpetuating the name as we have
changed our name to the more Hebrew-sounding Shani.

Benzy Shani
Ofra, Israel

A Jewish soldier who was killed in WWI in the British army was called in the
official records SCKKOOL. He was born in Russia. In the British Jewry Book
of Honour, a record of Jews who served in that war, he is listed as SCHOOL,
presumably that being how his name was pronounced.

Harold Pollins
Oxford, England