Dav-X 0 Posted March 9, 2005 Report Share Posted March 9, 2005 Seems that -stein is quite common in jewish family names, like Mermelstein and Einstein. Any idea about the origin of -stein? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
geraldc 234 Posted March 9, 2005 Report Share Posted March 9, 2005 Well it means stone in German, but I don't know if that's of any relevance. Ah, found this http://www.stevenwillingale.com/genealogy/stein.htm Quote Link to post Share on other sites
xiaoxiajenny 0 Posted March 10, 2005 Report Share Posted March 10, 2005 I only found this: stein=(容量约为一品脱的)陶质(或玻璃)啤酒杯 And if it's Capital S, it is Stein 斯坦(surname) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
gougou 147 Posted March 10, 2005 Report Share Posted March 10, 2005 The Jews in central and eastern Europe spoke Yiddish, a form of German (the main difference probably being that it is written in hebrew letters). They also did not use family names until forced to do so by local governments, which led to the creation of many 'colorful' names, that also today, when retransliterated into the latin alphabet, are 'understandable' by a speaker of German (the Jewish origin is also immediately recognizable.) Besides -stein, many other endings such as -stern (star) or -berg (mountain) are quite common in these names. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GentleWind 10 Posted May 21, 2005 Report Share Posted May 21, 2005 In German, ein means "one" and stein means "stone." So, Einstein could be translated as "a stone." Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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