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Hmm yes i have looked and it is true! They are location surenames , that is sure. The name Kissing comes from Kissingen its a town.
I looked a little and the German wikipedia article is very informative on Jewish names!!
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jüdischer_Familienname
The english Wikipedia article is useless for German Jewish names it has not the informations of the German article!! I try a summary okay?? The article says that German jews had no steady family name before end of 18. century. The praktice before was that they took the name of the father as a surname ( Jakob ben Nathan = Jakob, Son of Nathan )!!
At the end of 18. century the absoluteistic states made it mandatory for jews to take steady surnames if they want enhanced peoples rights. It hapened 1787 first in Austria and other German states followed!! And 1808 Napoleon made a decret ( décret infâme ) that all jews need to take a steady surname and other countries followed with the regulation.
Jews could not pick a free name and sometimes they were degorating ( Trinker, Bettelarm ,Maulwurf ) but they could it change later. Often they took a name near the normal German names to not attract attention. But often jew names are different because the jews liked synonyms , thinking around corners , malapropism ( ??? translator word lol ) and self irony.
But a other site with some information in English is here ---- second paragraph is about jewish names.
http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa050399.htm
Interesting passage is that: The name they received sometimes depended on how much a family could afford to pay. Wealthier familes received German names that had a pleasant or prosperous sound (Goldstein, gold stone, Rosenthal, rose valley), while the less prosperous had to settle for less prestigious names based on a place (Schwab, from Swabia), an occupation (Schneider, tailor), or a characteristic (Grün, green).
Money money money what suprise!
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