Asturian-American Migration Forum

I believe those of you who often wonder whether or not you have any sephardic surnames will enjoy this web site by the Jewish Community of Asturias. They have a complete list of surnames that will shed some light into this sometimes controversial issue. A lot of people think they have Jewish surnames when they don't, while others who do just have no idea.

www.sefarad.as/apell/apea.htm
[try www.sefarad.as }

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Creo que a los que a veces os preguntáis si tenéis o no algún apellido sefardí os gustará esta página de la Comunidad Israelita de Asturias. Trae una lista completa de apellidos que aclara este asunto a veces polémico. Mucha gente piensa que tienen apellidos judíos cuando no los tienes, y otros que sí los tienen no se enteran.

www.sefarad.as/apell/apea.htm
[usa www.sefarad.as }

Saludos
Terechu

Hola Terechu,

Thanks for a link to a very interesting site.

Several years ago I had an exchange of emails with someone who maintained that since some Spanish Jews had the Fernández surname, everyone with the Fernández surname must necessarily be of Jewish ancestry, etc. I was unable to convince him that everyone named Fernández is not even necessarily related to every other Fernández on earth. After all, there must have been very many men named Fernando who had children.

I ran across an interesting website (in castellano) about Ladino the other day. I'll look for it again and post the link if I can find it.

Can any of our members inform us about Jews who remained in Asturias or other parts of what is now Spain after 1492? How big is the modern Jewish community in Asturias?

Some time ago I posted a message about a wonderful cookbook, "A Drizzle of Honey: The Lives and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews" by David Gitlitz and Linda Kay Davidson.

Un abrazo desde New Haven,

Bob Martínez

Hi Bob,
I'm glad you liked the link. I find it extremely interesting myself, because in fact the Jewing community in Asturias is practically non-existent and the ones I know are from abroad. However, there seems to have been a thriving community once.

By the way, I forgot to mention that the list reflects surnames of Spanish (Sephardic) Jews, in other words, some of those surnames are not strictly Jewish, as some changed their original names to inconspicuous ones like "Sánchez" (or Fernández) when times got hard.

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Hola Bob,
Me alegro que te gustara el enlace. Yo también lo encuentro muy interesante, porque de hecho la comunidad judía en Asturias es prácticamente inexistente, y los que yo conozco son de fuera. Sin embargo, parece que hubo una comunidad próspera en su día.

Por cierto, se me olvidó mencionar que la lista refleja los apellidos de judíos españoles (sefardíes), o sea que algunos de esos apellidos no son estrictamente judíos, ya que algunos cambiaron sus apellidos originales por otros menos llamativos como "Sánchez" (o Fernández") cuando la cosa se puso difícil.

Saludos
Terechu