David Bell bell@hotmail.com                                                                                                 

Hello, can anybody tell me why an American family would have "Bukovina" as a surname? Their ancestry is Hungarian, and they have no idea about their history. The family is Roman Catholic, not Jewish, but the odd surname and demographics make me wonder if maybe it originally was Jewish.
Here's the problem: People living *in* Bukovina wouldn't be *called* "Bukovina," for the same reason nobody in Texas is called "Tex." So the answer can't involve a Hungarian who moved to Bukovina. But if the solution involves a Bukovine who moved to Hungary, and took the name at that time, we would expect the family to be Orthodox instead of Catholic. Right?
So what's the most likely solution?
Good luck to you in your endeavors!  

Subiectul

Expeditor

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Bukovina  slavik name?

Jakob Weiner

  Apr 2002

Dear Mr. Bell,
First of all, thank you for your inquiry.
As requested we would like to answer as such:
The hungarian people are huns and not slavik. The name "Bukovina" is slavik. In the 14. century the slavik people called the aria "Bukovina", which means "land with timber and woods". 1774 the austrian people seized the power over the aria "Bukowina" and called it "Buchenland", which means exactly the same: "land with timber and woods". Their ist no relation between the aria of "Bukovina" and the faith of its people, meaning: in the bukovina lived jewish people beside Roman Catholics and others. Anyway, the surname "Bukovina" is, as we know, very rare.
With best regards
Jakob Weiner
           (Vicepresident of the World Organisation of Bukovinian Jews)