Katz (name)
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Katz is a frequent German surname. It is also a common Ashkenazi Jewish surname. It can also be found in similar forms, such as Katzer.
It is believed that Germans with the last name Katz originate in the Rhine River region of Germany, where the Katz Castle is located.
It is an abbreviation formed from the initials of the name Kohen Tzedeq (כּ״ץ), and has been used since the seventeenth century, or perhaps somewhat earlier, as an epithet of the supposed descendants of Aaron. The collocation is most likely derived from Melchizedek ("king of righteousness"), who is called the priest ("kohen") of the most high God (Genesis xiv. 18), or perhaps from Psalm cxxxii. 9: Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness ("tzedeq").
If the reading is correct, this abbreviation occurs on a tombstone, dated 1536, in the cemetery of Prague (Hock, Die Familien Prag's, p. 175); it is found also on a tombstone of the year 1618 in Frankfort-on-the-Main (M. Horowitz (Moses Horowitz?), Die Inschriften des Alten Friedhofes der Israelitischen Gemeinde zu Frankfurt-am-Main 1901, p. 63), in the books of the Soncino family of Prague of the seventeenth century (Zunz, Z.G. p. 262), and in one of the prefaces to Shabbethai ben Meïr ha-Kohen's notes on the Choshen Mishpat (Amsterdam, 1663).
[edit] See also
[edit] Article references
- article Katz, by Gotthard Deutsch from the Jewish Encyclopedia
- This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.
