What Do The Names Of People You Meet Tell You? From Arabic to Yiddish, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and more

How do you remember the names of your doctor or dentist, client or customer? Sometimes the name is easier to remember if you picture the work, building or personality. For example, I remember that my publisher was Cassell, German for castle. The first three letters of Castle and Cassell are the same The le at the end in castle is reversed to make Cassell.

It is much easier to remember the name of a friend you meet when travelling if you recall the meaning of the name and the person or name's country of origin. Some names are very popular.

I boarded a plane from Heathrow in London to India and in the queue (Americans say line-up) I started talking  to a man named Mr Patel. Patel is a very common Indian name. I had had a pupil called Patel learning English from me when I was a home tutor and travelled to her home in Wembley, London. 

When we arrived at Delhi, I saw him at the airport and waved goodbye, saying, "Hello again, Mr Patel," and, "Goodbye, Mr Patel."

He exclaimed,

"You remembered my name? That's wonderful!"

If you don't already know the stranger's name, you can ask its origin. You make an immediate connection with the person you are talking to, and you remember their name.

I asked a girl in a shop in London what her name meant. It was Urdu for silver. We looked up her name to confirm this when I got home. For years I will remember that her name was silver in Urdu.

I shall look at names from the following languages or countries, alphabetically, to make it easier for me to compile, for me and you to refer back, and for you as a reader to jump to what interests you most, but English first as for English speakers and readers it is the map to the other names:

These are the languages I shall cover:

England/English, Arabic, Chinese, Christian, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Jewish, Muslim, Portuguese, Spanish.

I looked up the name of somebody who was a friend of mine on Facebook to see what that told me about his nationality, country of origin, religion and language. His first name was Solomon, which is English and means peace. Another of his names was Shalom which is Hebrew for peace. A third name was Ghanaian. 

If you check people with the same surname it usually doesn't tell you much, except when all the people of the same name are from the same country, that confirms the language spoken by them or their ancestors or their nationality or their ancestors' nationality.

Let's start with the English ones. I chose to look at names of work or profession, colours, and emotions or hopes or qualities. Some obvious ones, obvious once they are pointed out, are:

Flag of UK.

ENGLISH First names and Surnames

The most common surname is Smith

Smith (a person who worked as a blacksmith).

The others, in alphabetical order, are:

Angela - female first name, angel or messenger

Baker (makes bread)

Banister - basket maker, from French (As in Roger Banister, ran the first four minute mile)

Baxter - baker

Black (black hair or blacksmith)

Blue

Butler - in charge of wine, or the household

Carpenter/Carpender (works with wood, furniture maker)

Chambers - worked in the master's chambers or rooms

Chandler - candle maker or seller

Chapman - merchant, buyer, seller

Cheeseman - maker or seller of cheese

Clark or Clarke - scholar, secretary, scribe, educated person

Cook (worked as a cook)

Cooper (person who makes barrels)

Cowell - Smith, from Jewish, Polish, Serbian

Cramer - merchant (later of small items), from Kramer, Dutch or German

Cutler - maker of cutlery

Dane/Dene - valley

Dyer - person who dyes cloth

Faber - smith (from Latin)

Falconer/Faulkner - trainer of falcons

Farmer (works on the land)

Fletcher - seller of arrows or arrosmith

Forrester - forester, works in a forest - Scottish

Fowler - bird catcher, catcher of fowl 

Fuller - treats woolen cloth

Gardener (worked as a gardener).

Gartner - gardener or wine maker, used by Ashkenazi Jews, Germans, Slovenians (in former Yugoslavia)

Glazer - glass cutter

Glover - seller of gloves

Gold (Goldsmith)

Granger - collector of rents and taxes on a farm

Green

Hooper - builder of barrels (like cooper)

Knight 

Marshall - horse servant or lover of horses - from French cheval meaning horse

Mason - stonemason, or from Aramaic toma for Thomas meaning twin

Miller - works as a miller, grinding corn for bread flour in a windmill

Silver (Silversmith)

Son on the end of a name means son of, hence: Benson, Clarkson, Davison, Ericson, Harrison, Jackson, Johnson, Morrison, Richardson, Robertson, Tomson, Williamson

White

Now let's take 

ARABIC

Abdul - servant or slave

Ali - high one

Amir - prince

Dawood (David)

Hakim - wise

Mohammed/Mahammad (and other spellings) - named after the prophet, meaning the praised one

Omar - long-lived

ARAMAIC

Aramaic was the language in the era of Jesus and Roman occupation of what became Palestine and Israel. Aramaic is the origin of Arabic and Hebrew. Aramaic is still spoken today. Also used in the wording of the Jewish marriage document the ketubah, given to a bride to guarantee her moral legitimacy and legal right to financial support.)

Bar - son of, as in Bar Kochba

Barthelemy/Berti - ploughman

Beth - house (Bethany - house of poverty)

Martha/Marty/Mattie/Patty - lady

Mason - from toma meaning twin

Samantha - listens well

Thomas/Tommy/Tom - twin

BOSNIA-HERZGOVINA

BRAZILIAN (See Portuguese)

Flag of Singapore.

CHINESE

The two most common surnames are Wang and Li.

Common surnames are Lee or Koh, Li, Lim.

See my previous posts on Chinese names and language.

An - peace

Chen - great (common surname in Taiwan, about ten percent)

Feng - wind

Fu - wealthy

Hai - sea (as in Shang Hai)

Hui - wisdom

Lee - plum

Li - strength

Liang - bright

On - peace (male)

Mei - plum/beautiful

Ming - bright

Shan - mountain

Shan Shan - mountains (Doubling a word is plural in Malay and Chinese)

Wang, Wong, Ong - king

CHRISTIAN

Christian

Christine

Charity

Faith

Hope

Jesus

John

Johnson (son of John)

Kris

Luke

Mark

Mary

Mathew

Christian Catholic, Ireland

Mary

Teresa

Christian Protestant, Northern Ireland

Elizabeth

CROATIA

CZECH

Bela - white

Reznik - butcher

DANISH

Christiansen - son of Christian

Flag of The Netherlands

DUTCH

Bakker - baker

Bosman(s) - woodman

Boer - farmer

Brouwer - brewer (of beer)

Cuyper - cooper, maker of barrels

De Kok - cook

Geduld - peace, calm

Jan - John

Leeman -tenant

Van - from/of

Wagner - wagon driver

Wit - white

Flag of France

FRENCH

Blanc - white

Chevalier - works with horses (cheval - horse)

Courvoisier - shoe maker (from Cordova)

Fournier - baker (fire tender)

Jean (Make name, French for John, pronounced zho(n)/sho(n), usually combined with another name, such as Jean-Claud)

LeBlanc - the white (one)

Marie (Christian, Catholic, female forename, usually combined with another name such as Marie-Antoinette)

Masson - stone worker

Vert - green (As in Jacques Vert, clothes brand, named after the founder)

Flag of Germany

GERMAN (also spoken in Austria and Switzerland)

Adler - eagle

Bauer - farmer, peasant

Cassell - castle

Eisenhauer - iron hewer

Fischer - catcher or seller of fish (fourth most common name in Germany)

Fleischman/Fleischmann - butcher (flesh man) (also Yiddish which has a large German vocabulary)

Gaertner/Gartner - gardener

Hausman - householder

Hofman - steward

Houtman - woodman

Kaufmann - merchant

Kesselman - kettle man, coppersmith

Klemperer - tinker

Koch - cook

Koehler - maker of charcoal from wood

Krämer - merchant

Kravits - potter or tavern keeper

Lerner - student/scholar

Mahler - painter, usually of stained glass 

 Müller - miller (also used in Austria, France, Switzerland)

GHANAIAN

Ofori (family name)

Flag of India

HINDI/Indian

Ivan - gift of God

HUNGARIAN

Katona - soldier

HEBREW

Ben - son of (as in Ben Gurion PM of Israel, Ben Hur in film/movie)

Beth - house

Dan - surname from tribe of Dan in the book of Genesis in the Bible (known to Christians as the Old Testament)

El - God (as in Elijah, Elizabeth)

INDIAN

Mohan

Patel

Flag of Italy.

ITALIAN

Ferrari (as in the cars)/Ferraro(as in the chocolates - worker in iron, or blacksmith

Magnani - locksmith

Maria

Verdi - green

Flag of Japan

JAPANESE

akiko - first name for girl, meaning autumn child 

Annya - peace and sustenance

Gen - spring

Gin - silver

Gina - silvery

Hana - flower

Megumi - blessing/grace/love/beauty (depending on the Japanese characters)

Noriko

The ending syllable, or suffix, ko, as in Akiko, Noriko, at the end of a Japanese first name indicates a child (female)

Chi, meaning one, on the end of a name means first born child. (One, two, three, four is: ichi ni san shi)

JEWISH

(See also German and Russian and Yiddish)

Cohen meaning priest. (A religious Cohen cannot currently, 2020, marry a divorced woman, so on a dating site, a man named Cohen might start asking what seem personal questions. That is why.)

Lerner - student or scholar

Shlomo (short for Solomon which is from the Hebrew for peace)

Solomon

Taylor (works as a tailor)

Flag of S Korea

KOREAN

Dan - end, red, stairs

MUSLIM (See Arabic)

Kogan (and Cogan as in singer Alma Cogan?) - Russian variation of Cohen meaning priest

Flag of Portugal

PORTUGUESE

Angelo (male first name) - messenger

Marco/Marquez - from Mars, God of war, from which we get the month of March

SCOTTISH

Macpherson - son of the parson

SERBIA

SLOVENIA

Flag of Spain.

SPANISH (and Venezuelan) (Portuguese words are often the same)

Amadeo - loves God (remember Latin, amo, amas, amat, the first verb you learn, I love, you love, he, she or it loves, deus god,)

Anton - Anthony

Carlos - charles

Chico - boy

Cipriano - from Cyprus

Cortez - Curtis

Cristiano - Christian

Cristofer - Christopher

Cruz - cross

Dante - enduring

Diego - James

Domingo - born on Sunday

Eduardo - Edward

Jesus

Mayor - older (son), chief or superior

Rivera (as in the name of painter Diego Rivera) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Rivera is a surname of Spanish and Italian origin which was the old spelling of ribera, the Spanish word for "riverbank". 

Rivera is also a northern Italian variation of the mostly Sicilian surname "Ribera".

The distinguished surname Rivero is a proud sign of a rich and ancient ancestry. The name was originally derived from the Castilian word "rivera," which means "riverbank." Thus it is quite probable that the first families to take on Rivero as a surname lived near the banks of a river.

See Diego Rivera murals in detroit, his home in Mexico city which he shared with Freda Kahlo and where his friend and guest/lodger Trotsky was killed. See Trotsky and Rivera memorials.

UKRAINIAN

Kravets - tailor

VENEZUELAN (Spanish)

Jesus

Flag of Wales with Welsh dragon

WELSH

Dylan - son of the sea

Evans - son of Evan, Ifan, John. Ab Evan meaning from Evan led to the name Bevan

Jones - son of John or Ioan

Lowri - Laura

Megan - Margaret

Owen - young warrior

Trevor - village

Vaughan - small

YIDDISH

(See also German, Russian)

Adler - eagle (German)

Kesselman - kettle man or kettle maker, coppersmith (copper smith)

Mayor - from first name, a nickname meaning enlightener, from meyer German meaning light.

Yehudi - praise

I shall add to these later, as I have time. I am gathering more by asking friends on Facebook on my home page and the Polyglot page.

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Occupational_surnames

Duolingo.com

Learn languages for free on the internet with Duolingo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic

https://adoption.com/baby-names/origin/Aramaic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Japanese_surnames

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megumi

https://adoption.com/baby-names/origin/japanese

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_(name)

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

See later post on Names from different nationalities, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese. Please save links and share them with your family, friends and colleagues and customers.

Why You Should Check Addresses, Timing of Arrival At A New Place For Dinner

Problem
A friend has moved to a new home and invited us for dinner. Where is it? What time? How do I prepare for travelling to the event?

Answers
Check the address.
Check how critical is our arrival time.
Estimate length of journey.
Check we have items to take with (drinks, new home gifts, birthday anniversary gifts, flowers, alcoholic drinks, anything promised) maps and printed directions; keying postcode into sat nav, checking parking.

Story
Last time we visited her we spent longer than expected walking down a long road from the tube station. Then we had trouble finding a basement flat in terraced housing where many of the houses had no number.

By the time we arrived, we had delayed her two flat mates who were both going out to different evening events. She wanted us to meet them. (Shared interests included running marathons, wine, the flatmates' home countries, ou recent travel trips to their countries.

We were all able to eat cold starters together. The main course was overdone. Our fault for being late.
The evening did not last as long as we had expected. We thought at a weekend, no work, we could arrive late because we could sit up late. However, she had an early morning start with a group sports training, for a marathon and a triathlon (even involving three different sports, running, swimming and a third.)

I just tried googling the address and street view lands me on a roundabout! (At the main road end of a long street with 13 entry points). 

As I shall be front seat, back seat driver, arguing with Satnav, I asked her,

 

"Can you give me an indication of which side of the road and where to park?" 

Also your phone number. 

What time arrive and leave?"

 

(Is that flexi time, (eg arrive 6.30 pm - 9 pm, Polish/Arabic/Jewish, social not before time - in case you are not ready; or be prompt, New York style, 6.55-7 pm and no later, 'not after' time - if cooking a soufflé or other guests or flat mates have to leave for somewhere else after meeting and eating. Do you have to finish by 10 pm be up for a sports event at 6 am, in which case arriving at 9 pm allows no time.

Story

Once, years ago, we travelled from North London to Hampstead. Both of us assumed the other one would have the address. We missed the evening and lost touch with our friends who were bidding us farewell on the point of moving away. We never found their new address.

The moral is, you can't be too careful in getting full directions, addressed, phone numbers, timings, well in advance.

PS If travelling to a business meeting at an office, have personal phone numbers, not just the name of the person you are meeting. Large buildings may have several companies on each floor. In Singapore, I have gone to meetings, not at my friend's office address, business company's head office, listed on the board and building directory under the name of the holding company.  

A first name is not enough. Even a surname could be the same. You might have several people called Mr Jones in Wales. I went to meet a pupil whose surname was Patel in Wembley. Houses had no numbers. I located a Patel family. No such person. Luckily I had the introduction letter with my pupil's full name. Even so, the street had at least three families all called Patel.

At one time there were two people I knew of called Angela Lansbury. Then four. Today I tried to find myself on LinkedIn. I discovered to my horror that LinkedIn had thirteen people registered with my name. Facebook and Internet searches produce as many results for most of the names I checked.

That's why you need to know:

Address, building name, floor, the name of the person, other people listed on the doorbell, or company name on the floor listing, street directions, parking places. Event timing - start time and end time. Journey time. Allow extra time for delays during journey, and last minute panics when setting off. As the scouts say, be prepared!

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Angela Lansbury, the writer not the actress

A fellow writer has written to me a cordial letter from which I extract:

• "I have watched with interest several of your YouTube videos ...  .  I find confusing the many manifestations of your name, and wonder why you chose to adopt that of a nationally-known actress.  I can imagine what a lot of explaining I would have to do whenever you came up in conversation!"

I am not the only person in the world to have the same name as somebody else. In many offices employing over 100 people there are two or more with the same first name, and every so often you find an office where two people have the same first name and family name.

Nor am I the only person in the world to have the same name as somebody (older) whose world wide and internet success and fame has overtaken mine.

I did not choose to have the same name as a nationally known actress. 

The Family Name Change
I admit that my father changed the family surname after World War II before I started school to something which was not European but English. Unfortunately I did not record that I ever asked my father why he chose Lansbury. 

If I did, he probably answered, non committally  as he would have done, that it was just an English name. He was a practical person, ran a small optician's shop, later a second shop, and had no interest in fame. 

My father was a quiet man. He went deaf in one ear, which limited conversation. I realise, whilst typing this for you, that being deaf also accounts for liking for reading books, but also his lack of interest in anything requiring listening: radio and TV, films and theatre, concerts, nor opera. After WWII both of my parents preferred to live a quiet life. 

George Lansbury
Let's go back to the name Lansbury. My father grew up in the East end of London. George Lansbury was known for defending the seamstresses and my father's mother had been a seamstress. The name Lansbury would have been known to both my parents. However, I doubt whether they ever checked on how widespread the name was, whether it was common or distinctive. 

Many people changed their name. Something English sounding and easy to pronounce. Easier to make friends. More memorable for a business. Moss Brothers was originally Moses Brothers. Marks and Spencer.

However, my mother was the one who pushed for a change of name. Her family had been in England, for four generations, more than my father's three. My mother's family had been born in England, speaking English, for four generations.

My maternal grandmother (mother's mother) chose my first name. My mother chose the middle name Angela.

I preferred Angela. It sounded more feminine. I was a girly girl. I liked pink and pretty dresses. I liked frills. I liked to sit and sew.

When I went to primary school (known as elementary in the USA) the teacher called me Angela by mistake because another girl with the same length hair had sat in the same seat the previous year. The teacher appoogised. I obligingly told her it was OK because it was my middle name and I preferred it.

My grandmother died whilst I was still at primary school, so my mother was happy to call me Angela, matching the name I was called at school.

Unfortunately, when I went to grammar school, the teachers reverted to my, now unfamiliar, first name. I endured four years of this, until, worst of all, at O level year we read Hazlitt. Another pupil decided to nickname me Hazlit. Then somebody else decided that was too complicated and called me Hazel Nut. Finally worst of all, I was nicknamed Nut.

When I got to university I took the opportunity to r e v e r t to Angela. (Spaces inserted because predictive text inserts recent.)

As a schoolchild I spent evenings doing homework. TV showed one programme, BBC, Dixon of Dock Green. I did not go to films with my parents. 

When I went to university, I took a trip to the USA. I was delighted that reception in a grand hotel remembered my name Angela Lansbury. 

Imagine my surprise when I went out into the street and saw my name in lights. There was another Angela Lansbury.

For a brief period I added an H before my name. It didn't make any difference. I was still known as Angela and had the same conversations about my name. It just made my signature pretentious and caused confusion about my having two names.

I wrote features and travel articles and several books under my maiden name. When I married my husband insisted that I took his name.

When I started to look for email addresses and websites, my name had already been taken by other people called Angela Lansbury (I know of four of us, the actress, two authors, and one other person).

The names Angela and Lansbury are both legitimate names used by me on documents, not just nicknames, not just pen names. However, I also have other names from other periods of my life, which causes some confusion.

In many other cultures women have two names, their maiden name and their married name. Most people stick to their first married name, even if they divorce and re-marry, in order to have the same name as their children.

Liz Taylor, the actress, is a case of a person who because well-known under a name, and kept using the same name even when she married somebody of a different surname.

I once phoned Alton Towers to speak to the PR/marketing. I left a message, "Please tell Liz Taylor that Angela Lansbury would like to speak to her."

Liz Taylor, the marketing lady, spoke to me on the phone and never mentioned the fact that either of us had the same name as an actress. No doubt she had wasted enough company time doing that to other people and knew that I would understand.

When I go onto Facebook and search for a friend or acquaintance, I usually find at least three people with the same name. Businesses have problems when somebody of the same name opens a business on the other side of the world. You also have problems if anybody of the same name is associated with any kind of criminal activity. 

Worse still, newspapers merge your details with somebody else's. Easily done as people's lives overlap. Angela Lansbury the actress and I both have sons called Anthony. (She has three more children of different names.) 

In some cultures and countries a name is given to everybody in a group. Huge numbers of people are given the names Mohammed or Mary. John Smith is very common. 

I went to teach English to a girl living in Wembley whose family name was Patel. I thought it would be easy to ask where the Patels lived. After finding I was at the wrong house, I asked again. Another family called Patel lived across the road. Then I discovered that several, almost all the people in that small cut de sac were called Patel. 

In Singapore you find many people called Lim, or Wong. To claim a lottery ticket, or many other items, you have to show your national identity number. 

My family think it's pretentious of me to put letters after my name. But in Asia it is a requirement. It helps identify which department you are visiting and which level of employee you are due to meet. This spares the receptionist the embarrassment of introducing the head of the company to the office junior. It saves wasting time. It starts conversation. it helps socially. Introduce two scientists to each other. Two writers. Two students. Two heads of department. Two engineers. Two accountants. Two members of Toastmasters International.

Angela Lansbury, BA Hons, CL, ACG.
English teacher and tutor.
Travel writer and photographer, researcher, author and speaker.
Author of twenty books including:
Wedding Speeches and Toasts.
Quick Quotations.
Who Said What When.

Angela Lansbury - how many people with my name and yours?

Duplicate Names
To all my friends called John Smith and other popular names. I know how you feel. I am Angela Lansbury.
Travel writer and photographer. Author and speaker.

I am not the actress. I would like to be an actress. But I am not a professional actress. Yet.

I am not the only person who shares a name with somebody else. That's why the first thing they ask in court is to give your name and address. Hospitals occasionally give the wrong medication or operation to people with similar names. Mortuaries give the wrong bodies for burial or cremation. Sometimes parents are given the wrong baby.

British royalty give members of the same family the same name. The bane of every schoolchild is remembering Henry V, VI, VII, VIII. The americans like to call parents and children senior and junior.

First Names
In France it is usual to call a girl Marie, then add another girl's name. In Spanish countries you find Maria is the variation used.Variations on biblical names appear around the world in the spelling of the local area.

Family Names
There are six million people called Singh, several million called Modhammed, Patel, quite a few thousand called Lim, Singh, Wong.

Combinations
John  is a common English boys' name. Smith, the man who did ironwork, was a common family name.  The combination John Smith used to be said to be the commonest English name. I find a dozen of most people I look up on LinkedIn and Facebook.

So I am lucky there are only four people called Angela Lansbury. One actress. Two writers. One other.

The other author, so far as I know, writes novels and lives in France. I live in English speaking countries such as England and the USA and Singapore where I taught English. I write how to books and articles, speeches, comic poetry and songs.

English words
You may wonder why I spell out out and explain so many English words. That's because my blog readers include those in America, Russia and around the world. I hate having to go off and look up words when I am reading other people's blogs. I can remember learning new words from the age of 11 onwards at grammar school.

Never mind the three syllable and foreign words. I have had to explain one syllable words such as the word prop to a Korean and plot to a girl from China.

Among my many hats and talents, I teach schools, workshops and private pupils as a home tutor or on Skype. I have taught in England and Singapore. I have taught English language and literature, English as a Foreign Language, speech training for public speaking and presentations, and occasionally French.