I've heard this story told in my family many times, explaining the etymology of my grandmother's maiden name, Breitkopf (German for "widehead), and how it may be an indicator of poverty (as opposed to a name like Birnbaum ("pear tree"')). Doing some research, I'm having some difficulty much on it. Some discussion of German and Austro-Hungarian states requiring Jewish people to take on a family name. Is this story about buying last names true?
Thanks.
From what I know in Portugal, Jews started to choose a different family name, so they could not be identified as Jews, because if not, they would be heretic.
For example in 1497, according to the Wikipedia article, they had to choose a different name and so they chose names of trees, like "Pear Tree/Pereira" and "Olive Tree/Oliveira" I also learned that some chose names of saints or products like "milk/Leite".
Some of these surnames were already used by Christians, so the Jews just used it as their names and did not purchase anything, just changed to a more "acceptable" name.
One of the sources:Wikipedia Article in Portuguese