Alexander Beider: What's in a name? Unravelling the Mystery of Jewish Migrations Through Onomastics
01/01/2021
Alexander Beider was born in Moscow in 1963. He studied mathematics and theoretical physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, from which he received a PhD in applied mathematics (1989). Since 1990, he has lived with his family in Paris, France. In 2000, he received his second PhD in Jewish studies from Sorbonne.
Dr. Beider uses onomastics and linguistics as tools to unravel the history of the Jewish people. He has written the definitive series of reference books dealing with the etymology of Jewish surnames, all published by Avotaynu Inc. His books cover Jewish surnames from the Russian Empire (1993, 2nd revised edition in 2008), Prague (15th-18th centuries) (1994), the Kingdom of Poland (1996), Galicia (2004), Maghreb, Gibraltar, and Malta (2017), and Italy, France and “Portuguese” Communities (2019). His Dictionary of Ashkenazic Given Names (2001) is considered the new standard work in the domain. Beider is also the designer of the linguistic part of the Beider-Morse Phonetic Matching method of computer-based searches for equivalent surnames.
Dr. Beider uses onomastics and linguistics as tools to unravel the history of the Jewish people. He has written the definitive series of reference books dealing with the etymology of Jewish surnames, all published by Avotaynu Inc. His books cover Jewish surnames from the Russian Empire (1993, 2nd revised edition in 2008), Prague (15th-18th centuries) (1994), the Kingdom of Poland (1996), Galicia (2004), Maghreb, Gibraltar, and Malta (2017), and Italy, France and “Portuguese” Communities (2019). His Dictionary of Ashkenazic Given Names (2001) is considered the new standard work in the domain. Beider is also the designer of the linguistic part of the Beider-Morse Phonetic Matching method of computer-based searches for equivalent surnames.
Some useful linksSteve Morse "One Step Pages" for searching popular reference books for Jewish names:
From Jeff Malka: |
The recorded presentation
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