Alexander Beider
Alexander Beider is the author of reference books in the field of Jewish onomastics.
Biography
Alexander Beider was born in Moscow in 1963. In 1986 he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and in 1989 he received a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the same institution. Since 1990, he lives with his family in Paris, France.
His works deal with etymology and geographic distribution of Jewish surnames, traditional Yiddish given names, methodological principles of studying names, and the history of Yiddish. His papers have been published by scholarly journals in US, France, Israel, Poland, and Russia. In 1999, he received his PhD in Jewish studies, from Sorbonne. He is also the co-author with Stephen P. Morse of the Beider–Morse Phonetic Name Matching Algorithm.[citation needed]
Main Works
- Beider, A. 2014. Unity of the German Component of Yiddish: Myth or Reality? Jewish Language Contact. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 101-136.
- Beider, A. 2013. Reapplying the Language Tree Model to the History of Yiddish. Journal of Jewish Languages 1: 77-121.
- Beider, A. 2010. Yiddish Proto-vowels and German Dialects. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 22/1: 23-92.
- Beider, A. 2010. Etymology of Sephardic Surnames: Achievements and Perspectives. Pleasant Are Their Names: Jewish Names in the Sephardi Diaspora. Bethesda, MD: Maryland University Press, pp. 23–77.
- Beider, A. 2009. Handbook of Ashkenazic Given Names and Their Variants. Bergenfield, NJ: Avotaynu.
- Beider, A. & Morse, S. P. 2008. Beider–Morse Phonetic Matching: An Alternative to Soundex with Fewer False Hits. Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy 24/2: 12-18.
- Beider, A. 2005. Scientific Approach to Etymology of Surnames. Names: A Journal of Onomastics 53: 79-126.
- Beider, A. 2004. The Birth of Yiddish and the Paradigm of the Rhenish Origin of Ashkenazic Jews. Revue des études juives 163/1-2: 193-244.
- Beider, A. 2004. A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from Galicia. Bergenfield, NJ: Avotaynu.
- Beider, A. 2001. A Dictionary of Ashkenazic Given Names: Their Origins, Structure, Pronunciation, and Migrations. Bergenfield, NJ: Avotaynu.
- Beider, A. 1996. A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland. Teaneck, NJ: Avotaynu.["Best Judaica Reference Book" award for 1996]
- Beider, A. 1995. Jewish Surnames from Prague (15th-18th centuries). Teaneck, NJ: Avotaynu.
- Beider, A. 1993, 2008. A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire. Teaneck, NJ: Avotaynu.
