Names fascinate me, because I am a student of history. For those who study them, names reveal some remarkable facts of history. Though we rarely know the date or place of birth of our great-grandparents, some of us recall their names, which at any rate, reveal more about history than dates and names of places.

I have become a student of Jewish names (not entirely by choice, but then that’s another story for another time). In a way, it’s like studying a language, since there are some regularities and rules about certain, but not all, Jewish names. Few non-Jews ever learn those rules, and thus, non-Jews cannot communicate in that language. Some of the many Jews who immigrated to the United States from Poland had surnames of the common Polish type that ends in –ski. In America, most Jews with such surnames changed the ending to –sky. (The word “kike,” which I have encountered only as used by Jews, though Jews complain that non-Jews use it often as a pejorative, is derived from the –sky ending of such surnames). The –sky spelling is a subtle signal of Jewishness easily recognized by other Jews. Kowalsky means a Jew, the original form Kowalski a Pole. There are some exceptions to the rule, as with the Polish-born Jewish-American writer Jerzy Kosinski (actually a pseudonym adopted during the War), author of the hateful fable The Painted Bird, a vicious slander on the Slav peoples. Yet not everyone in America with a surname ending in –sky is Jewish, as Russians, Czechs, and some other Slavs typically spell their surnames of that type with the –sky ending. But generally, you’ll find a Jew hiding behind a Polish surname in –sky.

As with so many other things in this life, with their names the Jews want to have their cake and eat it too. Ideally, they would bear names that instantly indicate Jewishness to other Jews, but that never would be detected as Jewish by non-Jews. But that hasn’t happened yet. And today it’s even more difficult for Jews to use their name code, as more and more political leaders, corporation heads, and educators have their Jewish names displayed prominently. After awhile, people begin to assume that if a person is a university professor or the head of a bank or a non-profit organization, for example, he’s got to be a Jew, regardless of the name.

There are some myths about Jewish names, for example, the association of Jews, jewels, Jewry, and jewelry. That seems to be one of those rare coincidences of language. I have not researched Jewish surnames such as Diamond or Ruby (as in Jack Ruby and Neil Diamond), or the countless variants that begin with Gold- and Silver-. Among many Europeans, surnames are a relatively recent phenomenon, and in some isolated places were adopted only in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I recall reading something about restrictions on Jewish surnames on the territory of the Germans, though I’ve forgotten the details. I suppose that all the Jewish surnames associated with precious metals and gems can be traced to Germany and to those restrictions. To me such names seem terribly cold and peculiar. I wouldn’t want to be known as Howard Gold or Aaron Platinum, unless maybe I worked in Hollywood or had a jewelry shop, two fates I hope this life will spare me.

Jewish names are fascinating, because many of them function as a code. Not Greenberg, Rubin, Katz, or Cohen, of course, unless such common and clearly identifiable Jewish surnames are camouflaged beneath a wild spelling. But for Jews who play the ethnocultural charade, surnames are a tool of that game. Jewishness is an ethnocultural concept that changes its form and meaning in every situation, as the Jew sees fit to use his Jewishness to his advantage. If a Jewish politician wants to bring several hundred thousand Russian Jews to the United States, for example, he makes Jewishness a religious identity. Those Jews then become alleged victims of religious discrimination (despite the fact that nearly all of them are atheists and none practice the Jewish religion). In urban neighborhoods in the northeast, where Jews congregate and come into conflict with neighboring ethnic groups, Jewishness becomes ethnic, and Jews identify with one another on the basis of ethnicity. Many non-religious Jews in America willingly do not identify themselves to non-Jews, and some imagine that their Jewishness is invisible (though more and more of us goyish types through bitter experience learn to sniff it out). If all the Jews are hiding, it creates some difficulty then to maintain that network of Jewishness which is so important for them. (The charade can be rather stressful, I have read, as with one of a pair of Jews sitting through an awkward, silent encounter thinking, “I know he thinks I’m a Jew,” while the second stares at the first and thinks to himself, “I know he is thinking I know he is a Jew”, whereupon the first decides “I know he is thinking I am thinking he knows I’m a Jew”, etc. etc.). That’s when names come in handy.# I make no claim to be able to identify all the surnames of Jews. Many Jewish surnames in America are etymologically Germanic, and some are shared with ethnic Germans. In recent times, Jews adopted Slavic surnames, and quite a few Jews in America have names that originated among ethnic Slavs. Other Jews in America have changed their surname. And who would blame a Finklestein for becoming Monroe? An example is the American lawyer-turned sports broadcaster, once the most unpopular man on television, Howard Cosell, who stereotypically was Jewish in every way except for his made-up surname. So, often it’s a matter of pure chance in trying to determine Jewishness on the basis of a name.

Some critics of the Jews compile long and detailed lists of notorious Jews and celebrities who are supposed to be Jews. (I might add that I do not belong among the critics of the Jews, because I am only their observer. For religious reasons, I always am waiting for the Jews to show me something positive in their behavior. If that happens someday, I will rejoice and embrace them). I notice that typically there are mistakes on those “authoritative” lists of infamous Jews, for example, a female with a stereotypically Jewish surname listed as a Jew, though she happens only to be the non-Jewish widow of a dead Jew. Jews delight in such sophomoric analyses of their culture, because it seems to confirm their innate conviction that their enemies really are quite stupid, and it allows them to reject all the stereotypes about them. The lesson for critics of the Jews is this: don’t open your mouth about a Jew and never speak with emotion on the topic until you have triple-checked (3x) your facts and sources. Allies of the Jews are the dimwitted stormtrooper types who circulate nonsense that plays right into the hands of the people they hate so passionately. Oy vey, I should have such enemies!

Given names used to be called Christian names, until we learned how much that designation pains the Jews. Given or Christian, those names tell us something. The ideal name for a nice Jewish boy used to be Howard or Marvin. That was among non-religious Jews, of course. For the non-religious parents of a Howard or Marvin, the name made just the perfect statement, indicating some acceptance of assimilation and a rejection of Judaism, but without getting too goyish about the whole matter. When I am introduced to a Howard or Marvin, I raise an eyebrow and start to scan his facial features. Same thing for Joels, Jons, and Sarahs.

Jews are proud of their given names and pleased that other ethnocultural groups bear them, just one more proof they are the light of the nations. Imagine how many uncircumcised Davids and Michaels are running around the planet today. But it would be a shameful thing even for assimilation-minded Jewish parents to stick their child with a name too goyish. Thus, the following are avoided by all self-respecting and responsible Jewish parents: the names of Catholic saints, whether Dominic, Patrick, or Aloysius; “homemade” names and those with no demonstrable etymology that delight American WASPs and blacks, such as Thornton, Lakeesha, and Parker; and names shared with country-western singers, like Ferlin, Merle, Buck, and Dolly. (Let’s give the Jews some credit for that last call, okay? I don’t know what would be more awkward, to go through life a Ferlin, or to be a Mr. Lipschitz). A Jewish babe becomes William or Robert only when his non-religious parents aspire completely to the child’s assimilation, success, and probably a lucrative career as a lawyer, plastic surgeon, or president of a university. Yet even assimilation-minded Jewish parents shy away from James, Jimmy, and George, though I haven’t yet figured out the underlying ideology. And there aren’t a lot of Jewish Adolfs these days, though anyone who knows a little history can figure out that one.

I’m told that everything is possible in America. The role of the Jew in America constantly is evolving. Many Jews feel more comfortable with assimilation these days, and a couple even have started to suggest that the Jews are now the true American patriots. Considering all the changes America experienced in the twentieth century, Americans may be in for some real surprises in the twenty-first. Let America continue on its present course and I’ll be not a bit surprised to learn one day that President George Washington Elvis Goldberg, a personal embodiment of American multiculturalism and kosher-style diversity, ceremoniously has lit a Hanukkah menorah in the window of the White House.

Stojgniev O’Donnell is the pseudonym of an American scholar.