Günzburg is a surname of Bavarian origin. Ginsberg, Ginsburg, Gensburg, Ginsburgh, Ginzberg, Ginzborg, and Ginzburg are variants of the surname.

History

The Günzburg (Cyrillic: Гинзбург Ginzburg, Гинцбург Gintsburg; Yiddish: גינזבורג Ginzburg, גינצבורג Gintsburg) family originated in the town of Günzburg, Bavaria. It is believed that the family went there from the city of Ulm, Württemberg, and that for this reason the best-known progenitor of the family and some of his immediate descendants, as well as certain others, called themselves "Ulma-Günzburg".^[1]

It is also an Ashkenazi Jewish surname. When, early in the emancipation period, the Jews of Russia and of Austria were ordered by their governments to adopt family names, it was natural that many of them should choose a name so respected and pleasing as that of Günzburg. There is on record a lawsuit instituted by Baer Günzburg of Grodno against a Jewish family of that city who had adopted the same name under the decree of 1804.^[2] The court sustained the right of Jewish families to adopt any name they chose, and the number of Günzburg families accordingly increased.

The name is composed of two German elements. Burg means "castle" or "citadel". This commonly was also used to describe a walled settlement or town, hence common usage in town names such as Hamburg (from Old German: Hammaburg, lit. "castle above the river bend").^[3] The river name Günz is ultimately derived from the Indo-European root *gheu-, meaning "to pour". Thus, Günzburg refers to a "fortified town by the river Günz".^[4]

Gunzburg, Günzburg

• Akiva Günzburg (d. 1597), German poet and rabbi
• Aryeh Leib ben Asher Gunzberg (c. 1695-1785), rabbi
• Baron Joseph Günzburg, (1812–1878) Russian-Jewish banker, philanthropist and communal leader
• Baron Horace Günzburg, (1833–1909) Russian-Jewish banker, philanthropist and communal leader
• Baron David Günzburg, (1857–1910) Russian orientalist and Jewish communal leader
• Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, (1904–1981) socialite, editor, actor, producer
• Mordecai Aaron Günzburg (1795–1846), writer
• Nico Gunzburg, (1882–1984) Belgian lawyer and criminologist
• Isidor Gunsberg, (1854–1930), Hungarian-born British challenger for the World Chess Championship
• Karl Siegfried Günsburg (1784–1860), German-Jewish writer and preacher
• Milton Gunzburg, (1910–1991) American screenwriter and inventor

Gunzbourg

• Baron Philippe de Gunzbourg (1904–1986). French aristocrat and Special Operations Executive agent during the Second World War.

Ginsberg

• Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997), Beat poet
• Asher Hirsch Ginsberg ("Achad Ha'am"; 1856–1927), Zionist writer and philosopher
• Benjamin Ginsberg (disambiguation), multiple people, including:
  • Benjamin Ginsberg (businessman) (died 1944), South African businessman
  • Benjamin Ginsberg (lawyer) (born circa 1952), American attorney and lobbyist
  • Benjamin Ginsberg (political scientist) (born 1947), American political scientist
• Brian Ginsberg (born 1966), American gymnast, two-time US junior national gymnastics champion
• Inge Ginsberg (1922–2021), Swiss lyricist, journalist and heavy metal singer
• Morris Ginsberg (1889–1970), British sociologist
• Harold Louis Ginsberg (1903–1990), Jewish bible scholar
• Naomi Ginsberg (born 1979), Assistant Professor of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley

Ginsburg

• Benson Ginsburg (1918–2016), American behavior geneticist
• Chad I Ginsburg (born 1972), lead guitarist and mixer/producer of the modern rock band CKY
• Charles Ginsburg (1920–1992), leader of a research team that developed one of the first practical videotape recorders
• Charlotte Lucy Ginsburg, best known as Charlotte Gainsbourg (born 1971), English-French actress and singer-songwriter, daughter of Serge Gainsbourg
• Christian David Ginsburg (1831–1914), Polish-UK Hebrew language scholar
• Douglas H. Ginsburg (born 1946), Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
• Helen Lachs Ginsburg (1929–2020), American economist
• Isaac Ginsburg (1886–1975) Lithuanian-born American ichthyologist
• James Steven Ginsburg (born 1965), American classical music producer
• Martin D. Ginsburg (1932–2010), American lawyer
• Ophira Ginsburg, Canadian oncologist
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933–2020), American jurist and United States Supreme Court justice
• Saul Moiseyevich Ginsburg (1866–1940), Russian author and historian
• Serge Gainsbourg, né Lucien Ginsburg, (1928–1991) French singer, songwriter, pianist, film composer, poet, painter, screenwriter, writer, actor and director
• Seymour Ginsburg (1927–2004), computer science pioneer of automata, formal language, and database theories
• Shiphra Ginsburg, Canadian physician-scientist
• William H. Ginsburg (1943–2013), American lawyer

Ginzburg

• Alexander Ginzburg, best known as Alexander Galich (1918–1977), Soviet poet, screenwriter, playwright, singer-songwriter and dissident
• Alexander Ginzburg (1936–2002), Russian journalist, poet, human rights activist and dissident
• Boni Ginzburg (born 1964), Israeli footballer
• Carlo Ginzburg (born 1939), historian and pioneer of microhistory, son of Natalia Ginzburg and Leone Ginzburg
• Grigory Ginzburg (1904–1961), Jewish-born Russian pianist
• Irena Hausmanowa-Petrusewicz, née Ginzburg (1917 — 2015), Polish doctor, neurologist
• Leo Ginzburg (1901–1979), Russian conductor and pianist of Polish origin
• Leone Ginzburg (1909–1944), Russian-born Italian Jewish writer and anti-fascist
• Lev R. Ginzburg (born 1945), theoretical ecologist
• Lidiya Ginzburg (1902–1990), major Soviet literary critic and a survivor of the siege of Leningrad
• Mark Ginzburg (born 1956), American and Ukrainian businessman and public figure
• Moisei Ginzburg (1892–1946), Belarus-born Russian architect
• Natalia Ginzburg (born Levi) (1916—1991), Italian author
• Nora Ginzburg (born 1949), Argentine lawyer and politician
• Oren Ginzburg, French-Israeli writer and cartoonist
• Ralph Ginzburg (1929–2006), American publisher of Eros Magazine
• Semyon Alexandrovich Ginzburg (died 1943), Soviet armored vehicles designer
• Victor Ginzburg (born 1957), American mathematician, born in Russia
• Viktor Ginzburg (1962), Russian-American mathematician
• Vitaly Ginzburg (1916–2009), Russian physicist and laureate of the Nobel Prize of Physics
• Yevgenia Ginzburg (1904–1977), Russian historian and writer, mother of Vasily Aksyonov

Other spellings

See also

• Günsberg, municipality in the district of Lebern, canton of Solothurn, Switzerland

References

• Eisenstadt-Wiener, Da‘at (Czech: Qedošim), pp. 198–212, St. Petersburg, 1897–98;
• Belinsohn, Shillume Emune Yisrael, Odessa, 1898;
• Belinsohn, Ein Wort über die Familie Guenzburg, St. Petersburg, 1858. The chief source is Maggid's work, quoted above.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Günzburg". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.