FRENKEL Origin of surname
FRENKEL
This family name is a toponymic (derived from a geographic name of a town, city, region or country).
Surnames that are based on place names do not always testify to direct origin from that place, but may indicate an indirect relation between the name-bearer or his ancestors and the place, such as birth place, temporary residence, trade, or family-relatives.
Frenkel and Frenkiel are diminutives of Frenk, which is associated with the Franks, a group of Germanic tribes living between the river Main and the North Sea, whom the Romans called Franci/Francos in the 3rd century CE. Franconia, first used in a Latin charter of 1053, Francia, France and Franken were names applied to a portion of the land occupied by the Franks which became one of the stem-duchies of medieval Germany.
The present name of France in German, Frankreich, that is "empire of the Franks", has its origins in the establishment of the Frankish monarchy in Gaul by Clovis in the 5th century, and the eventual transformation of the Regnorum Francorum Occidentalium ("the western kingdom of the Franks"), as defined by the treaty of Verdun (843), into the heartland of the modern French state. Jews lived on the territory of France since the 4th century. Franco means "free/generous" in Spanish. In Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), it is the equivalent of the Arabic Franji/Ifranji, that is "Franks". Since the 12th century, these three terms were used in the east Mediterranean Muslim countries to designate all Europeans.
In the 16th and subsequent centuries, the word Franco is found in Sephardi rabbinic literature as a name for European Ashkenazi Jews. In Eastern Europe, it first came to mean a Jew who was a Turkish subject, and then a Sephardi Ladino-speaking Jew. Family names associated with the Franks may also be associated with places such as Frankenberg and Frankenau in Hesse, Germany, Frankenburg in upper Austria, Frankenstein (Zabkowice) in Poland, and others. During the Inquisition in Spain, the members of a pre-15th century Spanish Franco family moved to Amsterdam, Venice, Tunis, Crete and London. The name is documented in Salonika (Greece) in 1492 and Bordeaux (France) in 1528. The Italian Franchi, as well as the German Frank and Frankel, are found in the 16th century. Franks, Franck, Franke, Frankenburger and Fraenkel are recorded in the 17th century, Franc and Franklin in the 18th, and Franchetti in the 19th century.
Distinguished bearers of the Jewish surname Frenkel include the teacher Israel Frenkel (1853-1890), who compiled a German-Hebrew dictionary, translated plays and poetry from German and Polish into Hebrew, founded and conducted a biblical and secular elementary school in Radom (Poland) and was a pioneer of the 'Hibbat Zion' Movement; the Polish physician and author, Israel Frenkel (1857-1910); the 20th century Ukrainian-born Hebrew sociologist and philosopher, F. Frenkel, who used the pen name Bar Tobija; the Soviet physicist Jacob Ilich Frenkel (1894-1952), who was a corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences; and Pawel Frenke, born 1920 in Warsaw, who participated in the organization of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II.
This family name is a toponymic (derived from a geographic name of a town, city, region or country).
Surnames that are based on place names do not always testify to direct origin from that place, but may indicate an indirect relation between the name-bearer or his ancestors and the place, such as birth place, temporary residence, trade, or family-relatives.
Frenkel and Frenkiel are diminutives of Frenk, which is associated with the Franks, a group of Germanic tribes living between the river Main and the North Sea, whom the Romans called Franci/Francos in the 3rd century CE. Franconia, first used in a Latin charter of 1053, Francia, France and Franken were names applied to a portion of the land occupied by the Franks which became one of the stem-duchies of medieval Germany.
The present name of France in German, Frankreich, that is "empire of the Franks", has its origins in the establishment of the Frankish monarchy in Gaul by Clovis in the 5th century, and the eventual transformation of the Regnorum Francorum Occidentalium ("the western kingdom of the Franks"), as defined by the treaty of Verdun (843), into the heartland of the modern French state. Jews lived on the territory of France since the 4th century. Franco means "free/generous" in Spanish. In Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), it is the equivalent of the Arabic Franji/Ifranji, that is "Franks". Since the 12th century, these three terms were used in the east Mediterranean Muslim countries to designate all Europeans.
In the 16th and subsequent centuries, the word Franco is found in Sephardi rabbinic literature as a name for European Ashkenazi Jews. In Eastern Europe, it first came to mean a Jew who was a Turkish subject, and then a Sephardi Ladino-speaking Jew. Family names associated with the Franks may also be associated with places such as Frankenberg and Frankenau in Hesse, Germany, Frankenburg in upper Austria, Frankenstein (Zabkowice) in Poland, and others. During the Inquisition in Spain, the members of a pre-15th century Spanish Franco family moved to Amsterdam, Venice, Tunis, Crete and London. The name is documented in Salonika (Greece) in 1492 and Bordeaux (France) in 1528. The Italian Franchi, as well as the German Frank and Frankel, are found in the 16th century. Franks, Franck, Franke, Frankenburger and Fraenkel are recorded in the 17th century, Franc and Franklin in the 18th, and Franchetti in the 19th century.
Distinguished bearers of the Jewish surname Frenkel include the teacher Israel Frenkel (1853-1890), who compiled a German-Hebrew dictionary, translated plays and poetry from German and Polish into Hebrew, founded and conducted a biblical and secular elementary school in Radom (Poland) and was a pioneer of the 'Hibbat Zion' Movement; the Polish physician and author, Israel Frenkel (1857-1910); the 20th century Ukrainian-born Hebrew sociologist and philosopher, F. Frenkel, who used the pen name Bar Tobija; the Soviet physicist Jacob Ilich Frenkel (1894-1952), who was a corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences; and Pawel Frenke, born 1920 in Warsaw, who participated in the organization of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II.