I work for a CPA whose last name is Morovitz. It's a private firm and most of our clients names end with?

Question

"vitz" or "witz". I was just curious as to the nationality/origin (?) of these names.

Thank you!

Answer 1

In the US, it is predominantly part of a Jewish name.

As far as the world goes though, as another answerer said, it is a variant of "vich" which means "son of". Most of these surnames came from what is now Poland and Russia, though because "national borders" have changed so much, it included other areas as well.

BUT both Russian and Polish (not to mention Hebrew) don't use the same alphabet as Western Europe and the US. So when you see Morovitz, it probably wasn't spelled that way back in the homeland. A good rule of thumb is that when you see the "TZ" at the end, then that family had ties more to the Warsaw area (Poland) than to the more Russian dominated regions because in Poland TZ has just about the same sound as "ch". When Jews (and others) were forced to take surnames in the 1700s and 1800s, this form of surname fit quite nicely with the traditional patronymics of Judiasm. While a Jew would be Itsak ben Ibrahim (Isaac son of Abraham), since "vich" or "vitz" already meant "son of" and was already established in the region, this person could have taken the surname Abramovich Abramovitz or Abramowitz, etc. Because that really wouldn't be a change from his current name - surname would still mean son of Abraham just in a different language.

But it has predominance in Jewish people in the US because of the mass exodus of Jews from this region just prior to and at the start of World War II. The non-Jewish people with those surnames stayed, a lot of Jewish people with those surnames left (many to the US).

And because of a tradition (fading quickly these days) of Jews marrying other Jews (even in the US), you didn't have the diluting effect of losing a woman's surname. One "witz" would marry a "vitz" so there was no dilution.

So yes, if you had to guess, in the US your best guess would be Jewish. But in Poland, and near-by Russia, that probably would NOT be your best guess.

Answer 2

"vitz" or "witz" means "son of" so there are a lot of people with that ending on their surname who are not related to each other.

Since a W in German is pronounced like a V in English, the W and V are often swapped when a surname is written so it can't be used as a valid determiner for country of origin.

I have a Moskovitz surname that I've found as Muscowitz and Mushkoitz. The family's early USA records have a W but later records have a V. This family was Jewish from Lomza Poland, which was Russia at the time. The family's explaination for the spelling change was "W is Polish and we're Russian."

And I have a Meyerowitz branch with cousins who became Merovitz in the USA. So you just can't avoid doing the research to find out where someone really came from.

Answer 3

It's from central europe, Germany, Hungary,Czechoslavakia. Also related to the Russian -vich.

It's very much like the English suffix -man.

Answer 4

Jewish.