Neé

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Steve calling from Milwaukee.

Hi, Steve. How are you doing today?

Hi there. Real good, thanks. I have a question for you.

All right. Shoot.

My grandmother recently passed away, and for some reason, as I was reading the obituary, I noticed the way that her name was presented. It really kind of jumped out at me this time.

Her name was there, but then in parentheses, it said N-E-E, with her last name.

Now, I spent a lot of time with her when she was alive, and I know that we didn’t have any family member that was named Nee.

So I guess my question is, what’s with the Nee? What does Nee mean?

Well, first of all, I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother.

Thank you.

She was 92 and she passed. She had a great life. We’ll miss her.

We’ll miss her, but we have some great memories.

And so how did her name appear exactly? What was her name? How was it listed in the obituary?

Her married name was Sylvia Kahn. And in the obit, it said Sylvia Kahn. And then in parentheses, it had N-E-E, and the N-E-E was italicized. And then it had her maiden name, which was Rosenfeld.

So Sylvia Kahn, Ney Rosenfeld.

Right.

You pronounced it Ney. Is it Ney?

Yes.

Yes, it is. It’s from French. And it simply means born in French. And it’s a convention that I think I’ve only seen in obituaries or like junior league rosters.

Right. It’s sort of a genteel way of saying this is her maiden name. This was her name before she got married. But it’s simply a French word that means born.

And it’s only in obits because they want to give full respect to the woman?

Well, it’s a little more than that, I think. They have an eye towards the historical record. And particularly in small towns where these kinds of things are important to the community, where everyone knows everyone, and maybe she wasn’t in a small town, but there’s a tradition there nonetheless, they provide this information so people go, oh, yes, that is indeed the same Sylvia that I knew from high school. There’s her last name. Yes, that’s the one, because they might not otherwise know.

For people who do genealogical research, and I’ve done a bit of that myself for my family in the past, it’s an incredible boon to us because the information is just laid out for you there in print. And one extra name in an obituary can connect you to an entire family tree that you may not have known existed.

Sure, I can see how that could happen.

So it’s pretty useful. It jumped out at me. I had seen it. I never knew to look it up and thought, you guys are the experts. This is where I’m going to for the answer.

Well, so you came to the right place, huh?

I think so.

All right. Well, thanks for calling, Stephen.

Absolutely. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

All right. Take care. Bye-bye.

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