• notceps [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      If I had to guess family was jewish and poor in now germany. A lot of jews were 'given' a family name and if you didn't pay off the right people they'd give you a shitty name.

    • fanbois [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Digging into some German Wikipedia reveals several places, usually forrests, called Totenberg with disputed naming origins. F.e. totus, latin for all,everything and related Germanic roots. references to deserted, "dead" places or towns, names like Dodo, Toto, Teito.

      So "person from that one place named after Dodo" is at least equally likely in origin. Etymology is weird.

    • abc [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      idk there's a finding your roots with her though if you wanna watch and report back to the class: https://www.pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/about/meet-our-guests/nina-totenberg