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ArchivesRe: Gamarnik
in reply to a message by HailCthulhu
I'm going to assume its a version of Slovak hámorník "smith", as Ukrainian Гамарник is actually Hamarnik, not Gamarnik as it is assumed in Russian. Google gives гаморник (hamornik) in Ukrainian as wanderer, and hamarnik as chopper, but these seem borrowed from the Slovak.
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Must be Hamarnik as opposed to Hamornik, as the second syllable is stressed here (unstressed o is pronounced somewhat like an a). The Ukrainian pronounciation is hah-MAHR-nick, the Russian would be gah-MAHR-neeck. Looking at the Russian Wikipedia articles of famous Gamarniks I realized that all of these people were both Jewish and born in Ukraine. This lead me to suspect that the etymology is probably Yiddish. I also stumbled upon the actual article of the surname's etymology. It turns out that it is either from German/Yiddish Hammer, so a metalworker or smith. Alternatively, it could be from Aramic, Gamr, meaning "Study". Hope this helps.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Гамарник
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Гамарник
This message was edited 1/27/2019, 12:08 PM
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"Smith" seems most likely. Hamarnik would then be the Ukrainian version of Slovak Hamornik, the latter then borrowed into Ukrainian as the word Google renders "wanderer" (originally a "journeyman" smith or tinker?). In many European languages words for tinker or tinsmith are synonymous with "traveller" or "Romany".
This message was edited 2/7/2019, 5:47 AM
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