Sunday, November 4, 2012

The Origins of Surnames - Shavlik

And the Search Begins

Just yesterday in Genesis 14:17,  I came across a name for a valley in Israel called Shaveh.  What struck me is how close that name is to my maternal grandfather's name:  SHAVLIK.  The valley has also been called the Valley of Siddim and the Valley of the Kings.



Shaveh is pronounced Shaw-vay' in Hebrew.  The word means: the plain

So I decided to google the meaning of the name SHAVLIK and what did I find?  Over and over again I found the following meaning:

Hebrew for: the plain, that makes equality

 Many Yemenite Jews' family names are consisting of the place in which their ancestors have come to Yemen (like Sana'a) and an "i" in the end (like the family name "San'ani"), indicating belonging to the place they have originated from.

From the above we might assume that the origination of the surname SHAVLIK could give clue to the original location of the family, ie the plain of Shaveh.  Definitely HEBREW, which was a direction I suspected we were going.  Now to figure out the reason for the 'lik' on the end.  Could it be that 'lik' is the part of the word as above that means 'that makes equality'.