Günzburg (surname)

Ginsberg, Ginsburg, Gensburg, Ginsburgh, Ginzberg, Ginzborg, and Ginzburg are variants of the same surname derived from the surname Günzburg, a surname of Bavarian origin.

History

The Günzburg (Cyrillic: Гинзбург, Гинцбург, Yiddish: גינצבורג, גינזבורג‎, Ginzburg, Gintsburg) family originated in the town of Günzburg, Bavaria. It is believed that the family went there from the city of Ulm, Württemberg, and that for this reason the best-known progenitor of the family and some of his immediate descendants, as well as certain others, called themselves "Ulma-Günzburg".[1]

It is also an Ashkenazi Jewish surname. When, early in the emancipation period, the Jews of Russia and of Austria were ordered by their governments to adopt family names, it was natural that many of them should choose a name so respected and pleasing as that of Günzburg. There is on record a lawsuit instituted by Baer Günzburg of Grodno against a Jewish family of that city who had adopted the same name under the decree of 1804.[2] The court sustained the right of Jewish families to adopt any name they chose, and the number of Günzburg families accordingly increased.

The name is composed of two German elements. Burg means "castle" or "citadel". This commonly was also used to describe a walled settlement or town, hence common usage in town names such as Hamburg (from Old German: Hammaburg, lit. "castle above the river bend").[3] Developments of the word include Bürger ("town dweller") or Bürgermeister ("town master" or "mayor"). The river name Günz is ultimately derived from the Indo-European root *gheu-, meaning "to pour". Thus, Günzburg refers to a "fortified town by the river Günz".[4]

Gunzburg

Gunzbourg
  • Baron Philippe de Gunzbourg (1904–1986). French aristocrat and Special Operations Executive agent during the Second World War.

Ginsberg

Ginsburg

Ginzburg
  • Alexander Ginzburg (1936–2002), Russian journalist, poet, human rights activist and dissident
  • Carlo Ginzburg (born 1939), historian and pioneer of microhistory, son of Natalia Ginzburg and Leone Ginzburg
  • David Ginsburg (1920–1988), Israeli chemist
  • Grigory Ginzburg (1904–1961), Jewish-born Russian pianist
  • Irena Hausmanowa-Petrusewicz, née Ginzburg (1917 — 2015), Polish doctor, neurologist
  • Leo Ginzburg (1901–1979), Russian conductor and pianist of Polish origin
  • Leone Ginzburg (1909–1944), Russian-born Italian Jewish writer and anti-fascist
  • Lev V. Ginzburg (born 1921), Soviet writer and translator
  • Lev R. Ginzburg (born 1945), theoretical ecologist
  • Lev S. Ginzburg (1879-1933), Russian and literary critic, literary historian, philologist, publicist and teacher
  • Lidiya Ginzburg (1902–1990), major Soviet literary critic and a survivor of the siege of Leningrad
  • Moisei Ginzburg (1892–1946), Belarus-born Russian architect
  • Natalia Ginzburg (born Levi) (1916—1991), Italian author
  • Nora Ginzburg (born 1949), Argentina lawyer and politician
  • Oren Ginzburg, French-Israeli writer and cartoonist
  • Ralph Ginzburg (1929–2006), American publisher of Eros Magazine
  • Semyon Alexandrovich Ginzburg (died 1943), Soviet armored vehicles designer
  • Victor Ginzburg (born 1957), American mathematician, born in Russia
  • Vitaly Ginzburg (1916–2009), Russian physicist and laureate of the Nobel Prize of Physics
  • Yevgenia Ginzburg (1904–1977), Russian historian and writer, mother of Vasily Aksyonov

Other spellings

Gainsbourg

Gensburg

Ginsborg

Ginsbourg
  • Mark Ginsbourg, birth name of Mark Gayn (1902-1981), Russia-born American left-wing journalist

Ginsburgh

Ginzberg
  • Rabbi Louis Ginzberg (1873-1953), one of the outstanding Talmud scholars of the twentieth century.

Ginzburg

Ginsparg
  • Paul Ginsparg (born 1955), American theoretical physicist and creator of the ArXiv e-print archive

References
  1. Rabbi Jair Chajim Bacharach und Seine Ahnen, p. 45, Treves, 1894) proves that "Gunz" and "Gaunz" are simply variants of "Günzburg.
  2. Maggid, "Toledot Mishpechoth Gintzburg," p. 239, St. Petersburg, 1899.
  3. Duden, Geographische Namen in Deutschland. Mannheim, 1999. p. 134.
  4. Duden, Geographische Namen in Deutschland. Mannheim, 1999. p. 130.
  • Eisenstadt-Wiener, Da‘at (Czech: Qedošim), pp. 198–212, St. Petersburg, 1897–98;
  • Belinsohn, Shillume Emune Yisrael, Odessa, 1898;
  • Belinsohn, Ein Wort über die Familie Guenzburg, St. Petersburg, 1858. The chief source is Maggid's work, quoted above.
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Günzburg". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.

See also
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