Jewish tartan?

[gilmore]

I came across some info that has lead me to resurrect this thread.

There are quite a Jewish families from Lithuania, as well as from Latvia and other parts of the former Tsarist empire, named Gordon. How this came about is unresolved and subject to some discussion, but may be close enough for some to choose a Gordon tartan to wear.

There are several stories as to the origin of Jewish Gordons.

One, most favored by some, is that the name comes from Grodno, a city in what is now Lithuania.

Another is that it originated with "the Russian adverb gordo (proudly) or the adjective gordyy (proud). Tack an 'in' to the stem 'gord' and you get a prideful person."

A third possibility is Lord George Gordon (26 December 1751 - 12 November
1793), third and youngest son of Cosmo George Gordon, 3rd Duke of
Gordon, who converted to Judaism in 1787 at age 36. He took the name
of Yisrael bar Avraham Gordon. It appears that he died without issue,
but interestingly lived shortly before Jews on the Continent started
taking surnames in large numbers. Russian Jews were required to take surnames starting in 1804. For a brief accound of Gordon's life, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_George_Gordon

A fourth alternative is that it came from Scottish merchants and mercenaries in the Baltic in the 1600s/1700s, eg in Kedainiai, Lithuania.

A fifth sounds quite improbable, but may have a bit of truth somewhere in it: "Huntly House [on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh] was the home of the Earl of Huntly, chief of Clan Gordon. who gave money in the 16th century to start the University of Aberdeen, the 2nd oldest university in Scotland. The Earl of Huntly gave this money on condition that three of the students would be Jewish. Out of gratitude and honor, a Jewish person took the name GORDON...and thus the Scottish Gordon clan was born."

I will post more info as I come across it.