What's in a name.

The can be tendency for new researchers to get too precious about the spelling of a name.  Over the years, with census takers speaking different languages and dialects, a phonetic interpretation rather than a literal interpretation should be embraced.   

For example, a 1849 list shows Ayzik IOZEFARKES son of Yankel. Probably the same person that appears on the 1846 list as Ayzik IOZEFORKES, son of Yankel. 

Then we have suffixes that are applied to the family name. Married women, without exception, have the suffix “-iene” added to the male surname root. For example Mrs. LEVINSON would become LEVINSONIENE. 

For unmarried women the name would have a suffix that would depend on the fathers name.  

A name ending in “..as” would become “..aite”.  

A name ending in“..ius” would become “..iute” and 

A name ending in“..is” would become “..yte”  

For a man, the suffix can appear as “..as”; “..(i)us” or “..is” 

Then there is the problem of the interpreter or transcriber not being able to clearly read the original name hence the frequent use of the question mark “?” in the below list, which is list of family names that appear in Raseiniai research.  

This is not intended to be a complete list

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