---
title: "Surname origin"
url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/surname-origin/
lang: en
work: "The Smud Family: A Jewish Family History from Ludza, Latvia to Entre Ríos, Argentina"
author: "Mateo Smud"
licence: CC0-1.0
summary: "Where Smud comes from, how it changed between 1858 and 1904, and what it does not prove."
---
# Smud surname origin and historical variants

**This research does not claim that everyone named Smud, Zmud or Zhmud belongs to a single family.** It reconstructs one specific line, identified by its documents.

## A. What the word means

They are all the same word. It comes from Žemaitija (Samogitia), a region of Lithuania that the Slavic languages called Żmudź. But that does not turn this table into a list of relatives. Many people left Samogitia and many ended up with this same word, and there are surnames of other origins —Croatian, Polish, Czech— that came to be written the same way.

## B. How it changed from document to document

- 1858 — Zmud («David Falikov Zmud») — The 1858 census — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zmud/
- 1899 — Zhmud («Zhmud») — Marcos's birth record — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmud/
- 1904 — Smud («Smud or Smod») — The 1904 immigration register — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/smud/

- Zhmood: The form used by English-language genealogical reconstructions —starting with Chaim Freedman's— for the family in the southern Ukrainian colonies. On this site it is the surname of that generation's entries, but it is not written this way in any of this research's archival documents. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmood/
- Zhmuydya: The form under which family trees published online name the line's oldest ancestors —Leizer, Yehuda and Alexander— and David. No document of this research shows it: the 1858 census writes Zmud. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmuydya/

## C. Which family this is

Ludza → Novy Zlatopol → Berdyansk and Mariupol → Buenos Aires → Entre Ríos. What links the Entre Ríos family to the Novy Zlatopol one is the 1899 Mariupol birth record and the Paraná gravestone, not the surname.

## D. Other families with the same forms

The surname Smud does not identify a family, for two reasons. (1) Other words ended up spelled the same way: the Croatian Smuđ —the name of a fish—, the Polish and Czech Smuda, the Polish Żmuda or Zmuda; in Argentina any of them could end up written Smud, and there are families named Smud in the city of Buenos Aires that, as far as is known, have no connection to this one and no Jewish or Samogitian origin. (2) The same origin is not enough either: Zmud meant “the one from Samogitia”, and a great many people left Samogitia; unrelated families were identified by the same word. There are Zhmuds in Estonia, and Zhmuydas in Russia and Belarus, with no connection to this line. In Lithuania “Zhmud” was a common surname meaning “the Samogitian”. Two families can share surname, spelling, alphabet, etymology and region of origin and have no ancestor in common. The only thing that distinguishes this line is documentary evidence: the 1858 Novy Zlatopol census, the 1899 Mariupol synagogue birth record, the 1904 Buenos Aires immigration register and the Paraná gravestone. This research does not claim that everyone named Smud, Zmud or Zhmud belongs to a single family.

## E. Limits of the evidence

- **Zmud.** Zmud comes from Żmudź, the Slavic name of Samogitia, and a great many people left Samogitia: finding the form in a record does not prove it concerns this family. What identifies the family is the 1858 census and the documents that continue it. That family tradition names a Leon Moises Zmud does not prove he was Felix's brother either, and similar forms of other origins, such as the Polish Zmuda, are unrelated to this family.
- **Zhmood.** An entry reading “Koppel Zhmood” does not mean a document says so: it is the transliteration used by a reconstruction, not the spelling of a record. And Zhmood, Zmood or Zhmoot in another tree does not prove kinship: the word is the same one borne by many unrelated families.
- **Zhmud.** In Lithuania “Zhmud” was a very common surname and simply meant “the Samogitian”: most Lithuanian records bearing it are not this family. There are Zhmuds in Estonia with no connection to this line. Finding a Zhmud does not prove descent from it; what proves kinship here is the 1899 record, which names the child, his father and his grandfather.
- **Zhmuydya.** It is not the form of the 1858 census, which says Zmud, nor of any other document of this research: it comes from reconstructions with no papers attached. And like Zmud, it meant “the one from Samogitia”: finding it —or Zhmudya, or Zhmuyda— in a record does not prove it concerns this family, since there are Zhmuydas in Russia and Belarus with no connection to this line. It is useful for searching.
- **Smud.** Smud does not identify a family. In Argentina there are families named Smud, for example in the city of Buenos Aires, that as far as is known have no connection to this one and no Jewish or Samogitian origin: the Croatian Smuđ and the Polish Smuda or Żmuda may have ended up written the same way. Bearing this surname does not prove descent from Ludza, Jewish ancestry, or kinship with anyone in this tree.

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The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt