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.
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.
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
How does a family get the name "death mountain"?
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.
When you live on death mountain, you are death mountain
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.
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