Following the history session, I thought we could go back to Sara and her husband-to-be, Ludolf Marx and see how they came by their family names.
Imperial Decree
Napoleon issued an Imperial Decree at Bayonne on 20th July 1808 requiring all Jews within the French Empire to take a surname. Article 1 states:
“Those amongst our subjects who follow the Hebrew religion, and who, up to the present, have not had fixed surname or first names, shall be ordered to adopt one in the three months following the publication of this our present decree, and to make a declaration of the fact before the civil status officer in the commune where they live.”
Until this time there was a general tradition amongst Jews to use patronymic names, calling male offspring simply ‘son of…’ Patronymic systems were well established in various societies. One example is in Scotland where MacDonald merely meant ‘son of’ Donald. In Jewish terms, the word ‘ben’ means ‘son of’ and ‘bat’ similarly ‘daughter of’. This could cause tremendous confusion for the authorities. Hence the edict had nothing to do with any sympathy towards Jews but was just another example of state control.
Marx as a name
Evidence of such declarations can be found in mayoral records in towns across the empire. An example of such a declaration exists for the Marx ancestors, living in the Palatinate at this time.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac0e19bd-36d8-4965-9a07-d87427eb16d4.heic)
Written in French, the language of the occupying forces, the same formula was laboriously written out for each member of the family: ‘There appeared before us, the mayor of the community of Gemünden, canton of Kirchberg, district of Simmern, Department of Rhine and Moselle,….. who declared taking the name of Marx as a surname, and that of … as a forename, and he declared having no knowledge of writing. This twenty-seventh day of the month of October in the year one thousand eight hundred and eight’ Signed by the mayor C J Koch.
Loeb Lemmle took the name Jacques in keeping with the French theme. Kneidel, wife of Loeb Lemmle took the name Sophie and Lemle Loeb his son who was still a child (born on 19th October 1792) was given the name Louis by his father.
In all three entries it is said that they could not write although this is a very narrow interpretation. It is extremely likely that the family were literate but not familiar with Latin or Gothic letters. Jews only began to speak High German after this time, following emancipation in the early 19th Century. The family would have spoken Yiddish (Jüdendeutsch the German version as opposed to Polish Yiddish) and would have been able to write in Hebrew.
We know that life was likely to have been very hard in these small rural communities and the small number of Jews lived in harmony with their neighbours. They would freely help each other in coping with and alleviating the difficulties of a generally harsh and frugal life, irrespective of religion. They would have conversed with their neighbours in the local dialect, probably interspersed with Hebrew.
Stern as a name
The name Stern which is German for Star was popular amongst German Jews to take as a surname following the French edict. We don’t know whether this family name pre-dated this edict.
Stern was rarely used by non-Jews. In Germany it could be included in a longer name such as Güldenstern (‘golden star’) or Sternkiker (‘star watcher’). Other variations come from the old Germanic word ‘ster’ meaning ‘ram’, used in names such as Sternkopf or Sternbauer. Equally in the alternative it could come from ‘ster’ meaning ‘bald’ which gives Sternkopf the alternative meaning of ‘Baldhead’!
Stern can also come from place names such as Sternberg or Sternebeck. Many Jews, contrary to the edict, did use place names for themselves with some memorable ones such as Kissinger, Oppenheimer or Berlin. It is unlikely that our Stern derives from any of these.
We saw how Ludolf’s ancestors had taken the name Marx but that is not the whole story. We see in the extract the names that my ancestors took in 1808 in the little village of Gemünden. Before that the name the family had been associated with was Lemmel.
The Lamb
Jewish tradition has the sons take the names of their fathers and ancestors in an unbroken line. Thus we saw Loeb Lemmle taking the name Jacques Marx. Jacques was the nearest in French to Jacob. His son was called Lemle Loeb. Note the different spellings of Lemmle and there are other variations such as Lämmlein, Lemle and Lämle. People were not really concerned with how a name was spelt and thus these variations arose.
Lemmel undoubtedly means lamb, but it is not clear what the association is with a Jewish tradition or relevance to my family. This name in its variations, appears in both my maternal grandparents’ families as well. On the other hand, there is clearly a Jewish tradition of association of animals with the tribes. Judah is associated with the lion and Benjamin with the Wolf. However, why the connection with a lamb is evidentially used widely in German Jewish families remains a mystery.
The earliest recording in the family is of Lemmle who was born in Gemünden in 1735. He does not appear to have changed his name in 1808 because he had probably died before then. In a family tree seen by my father, he was given the name Leopold Marx but both these names had to have been added after. Similarly, his wife, called Esther was given the surname Frank but there is no record in 1808 of this.
Leopold and Esther had at least two sons. The eldest was Loeb Lemmel who became Jacques Marx and a younger brother Gottshalk or Getschele. This younger brother moved from Gemünden to Rachtig, a small town near Berncastel on the Moselle River. There he changed his name to Michel Marx being the French form. This branch of the family remained in Rachtig until just before the Second World War. Many emigrated, mainly to the United States of America and Israel while those remaining perished during the holocaust.
Variations of Marx
Marx itself as a name is very common among Jews of the Rhineland and it is still popular today amongst non-Jews. In my own experience, growing up there were very few other people with my surname. The earliest notion I had of the name elsewhere was in the 1995 film ‘The Net’ starring Sandra Bullock where the fictional character Ruth Marx appears. In the last twenty years, however, the surname seems to pop up everywhere, apart from my cousins in Australia, who I already knew about.
Jacques may have chosen the name Marx because of a patronymic. It could have well been Mordecai or Mordge. In the list of fixed family names by Jews in Gemünden in 1808, there is a family of Joseph Mordge taking the name Marx and he could easily have been related to Jacques. There is another person Mortge son of Hirsch Liebmann taking the name Marc Mayer. Marx also appears as a first name in my mother’s family so there is probably an equivalence between Mordecai and Marx, making it so popular amongst Jews at the time.
As I said earlier, you don’t have to be Jewish to have the name Marx or Marks and have German heritage. Today, there are at least three wineries called Marx in the Rhine area. The area of the middle Rhine is well known for its numerous medieval castles on both sides between Bingen and Koblenz. The name seems to come from one of the best-preserved castles on the right bank above Braubach. Started by the Eppstein family from a stone keep in 1117, it was built up into the structure known today as Marksburg Castle. It was also known as Marxburg in former times. This probably derived from the consecration of a chapel in 1479 within the castle, dedicated to St Mark or Marcus the apostle. The name Marcus itself derives from Mars, the Roman god of war.
Ludwig and his family
Jacques or Jacob Marx and Sophie had one son, Ludwig born in 1792. Ludwig was the first to have children born after emancipation and the names of their sons, David, Emanuel, Ferdinand and Gottlieb (‘Beloved of God’), reflect this. Apart from Ferdinand, the others reflect a Jewish heritage. Of the four sons, only Emanuel had children. His only child was given the name Ludolf Jacob, the ‘L’ probably harking back to ‘Lemmle.’ In the census of 1828, they are all listed as living in Gemünden.
Ludolf Marx
Ludolf married Sara and their four sons are named alternatively in the tradition of their respective families. Erich the firstborn and my grandfather’s Jewish name was Manasseh ben Jacob, following a tradition of naming the firstborn after the most recently deceased male ancestor.
Their second son Willi was named after his maternal grandfather, Moses Wolf Stern. And so it goes on with these complex traditions that merge and change with each generation, according to the order in which each child is born and the adjustments of the parents to their circumstances, right down to me. My middle name is James, referring to the last deceased ancestor in the male line, my great-grandfather Ludolf Jacob Marx. My parents, as refugees, probably did not want me to be so easily identified as Jewish by naming me Jacob, which is ironic as nowadays (2023) amongst Gen Z, Jacob is the most popular!
In researching my Jewish name, it starts with Lemmel born in 1735 as follows:
In this chapter, I have been talking more about names and naming, rather than the families themselves. In the next chapter we will start again with the Marx family and its origins and onward to my great grandparents and their off-spring.
Attributions:
Many of the documents and photographs here are, or at some time in the future will be, lodged as a family archive with the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Schenkung von Frau Anne Marx in liebevoller Erinnerung an ihren Mann Carl Theodore.
Thanks for reading the blog. Jews were not allowed to use place names such as Berlin or Berliner, Hamburg or Hamburger as in from Berlin or from Hamburg. However this seems to have been widely flouted given there are plenty of Jewish families with such names including Oppenheim and Kissinger.
You mentioned that some Jews took as their surname place names, which was contrary to the edict. What were the stipulations in the edict for Jews' names?