Kushnir


Kushnir is a Ukrainian and Jewish surname, meaning furrier.

Etymology

The root of the name is the old Slavic word for fur, кърьзно, which can be transliterated as "kyrizno" or "kurizno". The Polish word for furrier is Kuśnierz, also used as a surname, with similar words and names found in Serbian and Croatian.
Through the Slavic fur merchants, the word was also adopted into Germanic languages and evolved for instance into the modern German and Swedish words for furrier, and körsnär respectively. Yiddish is a language lexically based to a large degree on German, and therefore a Yiddish-speaking Jew living in Ukraine or Poland could relate to the local word for furrier both through the local Slavic language, as through his mother tongue.

Variations

There are many variations of the Ukrainian name Kushnir from all over Central Europe. In the west the name starts in Germany as Kuschner and variations of it run through the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary to Ukraine in the east and others. The derivatives may include Kushnirenko, Kushnirchuk, Kushnirovych, Kushnirak, Kushnirov, Kushnariv, Kushnarev, Kushner, Cushner, Kusznir, "Kusnir", Kuśnierz, Romanian Cușmir, and others.

Notable people sharing the surname "Kushnir"

Kušnier