This article discusses the notion of ‘Jewish surnames,’ considering it to be synonymous to the expression ‘surnames borne by Jews.’ This can be particularly helpful if we want the definition to add real value for the search of etymologies. The article describes most important peculiarities of Jewish surnames, categories of names that are exclusively Jewish, and various cases when a surname is shared by both Jews and non-Jews. It shows that certain alternative definitions of the notion of ‘Jewish surnames’ (such as surnames found in all Jewish communities, surnames used by Jews only, surnames based on specifically Jewish linguistic elements) either have internal inconsistencies or are useless and sometimes misleading for the scientific analysis of the etymologies of these surnames.

本文讨论“犹太姓氏”的概念，认为它与“犹太人姓氏”一词的同义词。如果我们希望定义为词源搜索增加真实价值，这将特别有用。本文介绍了犹太人姓氏的最重要特征，仅犹太人的姓氏类别以及犹太人和非犹太人共享姓氏的各种情况。它表明“犹太姓氏”概念的某些替代定义（例如在所有犹太社区中发现的姓氏，仅犹太人使用的姓氏，基于特定犹太语言元素的姓氏）要么内部矛盾，要么毫无用处，有时会误导对这些姓氏的词源进行科学分析。