THE BITERMAN/BITTERMAN SURNAME

Our family name first appears in records dating back to 1740 in Lublin, Poland. The family adopted this name much earlier than some of the other Jewish families in the area. This leads to the belief that it was not an assigned name, but an adopted name.

Some possible explanations of its origins:

1) In Spanish, the surname Biterman translates to Amargo or Amargura.

........... a) According to the Sephardic journalist and researcher Pere Bonnin, the families Amar and Ammar come from Majorca, the biggest of the Balearic Islands. The surname Amar was registered for the first time there in 1262, whereas the other can be found a bit later, in 1339. Both surnames are also regarded as Jewish surnames by Alex Santi Pereiro, genealogist of the Tarbut Shorashim Association in Barcelona. Mr. Pereiro relates them to the semantic field of bitterness, since lots of Jewish family names also indicate qualities and features. He includes a list of related variants from Hebrew Chometz: Agre, Sauer, Sharp, Vinagre, Essig, Vinegar, Amargo, Amargos, Amer, Amaro, Bitter. Ametller, Ammar. Professor Malka Gonzalez Bayo includes only Amar with a single "m" in her study devoted to Sephardic surnames called "Los Apellidos Judeoespanoles."

........... b) There are several geographies called Amargura or Amargon. These include "Pozo Amargo" in Toledo (the bitter well), which was part of the old Jewish quarter; the city of Amargura, near Seville; and the almost unknown Amargones peak in Leon, Spain -- part of a mountain range in northwest Spain.

........... c) Amargon (dandelion flower) translates perfectly to Biterman in Yiddish.

2) Bey/Bai/beyd means "lord", "sir", or "distinguished mister" in Arabic. Because Spain was Moorish before the Expulsion, there could be an Arabic/Turkish meaning for the surname Biterman.

3) "Biter" is the Polish translation of gorzki, which means "bitter" literally, a surname adopted to a sour, bitter, or severe person. However our family adopted the surname long before many other Jewish families in the Lublin area chose a surname.

4) The surname is an occupational name derived from the Middle High German bitten, meaning 'to bid' for a bidder, broker, suitor, or municipal collector.

My personal view is that section a or section b above offer the correct explanation.