Still more on near-Zwickys.
My previous posting looked at two Zwickes, one of them named Arnold Zwicke (a close call, but I still think it’s the case that there have only ever been two Arnold Zwickys in the US, and the other one is my father). The short surname Zwick (which in college I sometimes got called as a nickname) seems pretty clearly to be of Slavic, rather than Swiss, origin; is probably related to the German placename Zwickau; and is shared by two (unrelated) Americans in the film industry.
The Wikipedia page on the surname Zwick suggests that it derives from the city name Zwickau, which would make it Slavic in origin. On the city, from Wikipedia:
(#1) Zwickau, quite close to Czechia and not far from Poland (in the northeast corner of the map)
Zwickau … is a town in Saxony, Germany, it is the capital of the district of Zwickau. Zwickau is situated in a valley at the foot of the Erzgebirge mountains and is within the Saxon triangle, an area including Leipzig-Halle, Dresden and Chemnitz [and very close to Czechia]. The town has approximately 100,000 inhabitants, but has a regional catchment area of over 480,000 people. From 1834 until 1952 Zwickau was the seat of the government of the south-western region of Saxony.
… The region around Zwickau was settled by Slavs as early as the 7th century. The name Zwickau is probably a Germanisation of the Sorbian toponym Šwikawa, which derives from Svarozič, the Slavic Sun and fire god. In the 10th century, German settlers began arriving and the native Slavs were Christianized.
On to the filmic Zwicks, Ed and Joel.
From Wikipedia:
(#2) Ed Zwick
Edward M. Zwick (born October 8, 1952) is an American filmmaker, director and Academy Award-winning film and television producer. He has worked primarily in the comedy-drama and epic historical film genres, including About Last Night, Glory, Legends of the Fall, and The Last Samurai.
Zwick was born into a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ruth Ellen (née Reich) and Allen Zwick. He attended New Trier High School, received an A.B. at Harvard in 1974, and attended the AFI Conservatory, graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1975.
… Despite sharing a surname and profession, Edward is unrelated to fellow director Joel Zwick.
Among EZ’s other productions: Shakespeare in Love (1998) and the tv series Relativity (1998), My So-Called Life (1994–95), thirtysomething (1987–91), Family (1979–80).
And then:
(#3) Joel Zwick
Joel Zwick (born January 11, 1942) is an American film director, television director, and theater director. He is best known for his work on the television series Perfect Strangers, Full House, and Family Matters, and as well as for directing the films My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Second Sight, and Fat Albert.
… Born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family, his father a Cantor from an orthodox background, and having his Bar Mitzva at an orthodox Synagogue, Zwick was educated at Brooklyn College, where he currently teaches in the School of Film. He directed twenty-one pilots, all of which went on to have successful runs as weekly television series.
The Zwicks of entertainment.
December 9, 2017 at 9:19 am |
Presumably unrelated to the German zwicken, to pinch.