Is Goodman really a jewish name ?

http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/defa...





Goodman





English: status name from Middle English gode 鈥榞ood鈥?+ man 鈥榤an鈥? in part from use as a term for the master of a household. In Scotland the term denoted a landowner who held his land not directly from the crown but from a feudal vassal of the king.





English: from the Middle English personal name Godeman, Old English Godmann, composed of the elements god 鈥榞ood鈥?or god 鈥榞od鈥?+ mann 鈥榤an鈥?





English: from the Old English personal name Gu冒mund, composed of the elements gu冒 鈥榖attle鈥?+ mund 鈥榩rotection鈥?, or the Old Norse cognate Gu冒mundr.





Americanized form of Jewish Gutman or German Gutmann.





and





Gutman


Jewish (Ashkenazic): ornamental name or nickname from German, Yiddish gut 鈥榞ood鈥?+ man(n) 鈥榤an鈥? it was also used as a male personal name, from which the surname may be derived in some cases.





Americanized spelling of German Gut(h)mann (see Guthman).





Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4





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You can also look at the family. If there are more than the normal amount per capita of doctors, lawyers, accountants or Nobel prizes among your family tree, the Goodmans you know might be Jewish.





Jewish people were letting their women go to college long before Christians were, in general. Gertrude Elion, for instance, probably wouldn't have discovered the drug that cures leukemia if she had been born into a middle-class Christian home in 1918. She was born into a Jewish home in 1918 and won her Nobel Prize in 1988.





If some of those Goodmans were in army units that faced twice their number (or four times) and triumphed, in 1967 or 1974, they might be Jewish too. Not all Jews take up scholarly trades.

Is Goodman really a jewish name ?
no, it's a very puritan name...it was used to delinate someone's standing in society (i.e. Goodman Brown)
Reply:If your ancestry is German or Eastern European, Goodman is a very Jewish name. If you are English, then the answer is no.
Reply:Goodman is just a name. Some people bearing that name are Christian, but some are also Jewish. Names were acquired by Jews in the same way they were acquired by their Christian neighbors. There are few names that are exclusive to either group.
Reply:Not exclusively.