vit or vi suffix in medieval Jewish names

[Jeff at SG]

In my research I have accumulated over 2 dozen records mentioning Jews with the surnames Malca/Melca from medieval (1230 to 1491) Aragon and Navarra archives. But in the last 2 months I stumbled on Jews named "Malcavit" or "Malcavi" in Huesca and Montalban. I have never previously encountered the "vit/vi" suffix in any Jewish surname.

Does anyone know what the 'vit/vi' suffix means in the context of a medieval Jewish surname?

Without direct evidence is Malcavi likely to be a separate Jewish surname or a variant of medieval Malca?

Thank you.

Jeff Malka

[Alexandre Beider]

Hello Jeff,

You mention two names that are independent of each other:

(1) Malcavi appears in a few extracts from medieval Spanish sources, but Malcani is more commonly found there. Moreover, numerous Almalcani existed as well. In numerous documents these two letters, 'v' and 'n', are spelled very similarly. So the correct letter should be 'n' rather than 'v'. In principle, we cannot exclude that this name is related to Malca/Melca. Indeed, in the same area (covering Aragon & Navarre) we find a number of such pairs as: Ahoel & Ahuellani, Alcana & Alcanani, Almaça and Almacani (Almaçani?) etc. 

The element -ani could be an Arabic adjectival suffix. (At least, in the Levantine Arabic, -âni was and is still used to construct names of inhabitants of various places [in such cases, the form without -âni is a toponym] or occupations [in such cases, the form without -âni is the object of work]. It is also present in a number of Syrian Jewish surnames.

(2) Malcavit has several variant spellings: Amalcavit, Abnalcavit, Almacavit, Amelcavit. To my mind, there is no reason to think that this name can be related to Malca/Melca.

Best,

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[Jeff at SG]

Thank you Sasha.

You echo my thoughts too. I don't think they are likely to be variants. I just wanted another opinion.

Any ideas on the 'vit' or 'vi' terminations in general?

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Jeff Malka

Dec 23, 2021 11:44:16 AM Alexandre Beider <albe...@yahoo.fr>: