How a Last Name Can Inspire a Purim Theme

You might simply enjoy a bit of a laugh, or this might give you just the inspiration you need to think of your own Purim theme.

We crowdsourced Jewish family names that have inspired a theme for Purim. While many of them are corny, they still bring a smile to your face and it’s a fun way to brainstorm that Purim theme that hasn’t quite come to you yet. Some of these are quite obvious, while others are a bit of a fun stretch.

Use this list as inspiration to turn your own
family name into a theme that’s personally yours.

B

El-Al / El-Baum

Any name with “ber” – do snowmen! TauBRR, BRRkowitz 

Blum – Blumingdales

The Bornstein bears

The Bernstein Bears

BLOOMberg = flowers 

Burger – I’m a Berger girl – picture of a burger, or Berger King 

Our last name is Berger. One year I was a hamburger, my husband was a hot dog, and our twins were ketchup and mustard. 

Barber – obvious 

We did Bloom’s bakery last year! 

This one is kinda obvious but beer for Beer, or bear like teddy bears, honey beers etc 

“Bear”mans

C

Cohny island, 

ice cream cohns

Construction cohns

Blown by Cohen – balloon sellers 

E

Elefant family 

F

FishEhrman

Folger coffee

Franck.  Franks in blanks! 

Fisherman

Fisher – Fisher Price “We Fishers are priceless…”

Fisherman and fish costumes work well for Fischer, Fishman, Fishberg, etc.

G

Goldenberg (locks) & the 3 bears

Walgreens for “Greenwald” backwards 

My last name starts with “Gold” so I’ve done “gold” themes in the past

Our last name is Gamerman so we wanted to dress up as Gamer Men (different video games)

We did Gluckin Donuts instead of Dunkin 

Ghershenzon –  ghershenSUNs (as in a sun costume)

H

Haus of Rock (rock n roll band)

Haus of Cards (we dressed up as a deck of cards)

“Hirsch”eys Chocolate 

Horo “witches”

HUSSkies

K

Cat in the Hat for Katz family

Klein’s Ice cream 

My sister “Klein” was “Mr Klean” one year

Kahn =  Kahn – Man (prisoners) or Kahn – Artist.

Kaufman – “cow”fman , “cough”man – nurses 

L

My name is Lemel (Yiddish for sheep) I had one kid, he was 2 and we dressed him up in a lamb costume and my husband and I wore lamb ear headbands. I decorated cupcakes to look like sheep using mini marshmallows and gave green sour sticks as the “grass.” I wrote “simchas Purim from Mishpachas Lemel’ach” … to this day I think was my cutest Purim idea.

Last name Loebenberg: LoebenBEES, LoebenBURGERS, All around the GLOBEnberg, GLOWbenbergs (glow in dark), LoebenBIRDS, LoebenBURGLARS, Frozenbergs – Ice cream/winter theme 

M

Mandel – soup mandel

My first name is Melissa and did “Baked by Melissa” one year 

Munk-eys

Not a last name but we did Mindy mouse for my baby girl, Mindy’s first Purim! It was SOOOO cute! 

Mason – “aMASON prime”

“Mouse”kowitzs for Moskowitz

N

Our last name starts with N so we were N&Ns (brown shirts) and all the kids wore shirt with a M&M character that matched, then we just changed the M’s to N’s. 

Newman’s Own 

Nussbaum – nut tree (in Yiddish) 

Cin”neiman” with cinnamon theme

O

Ostreicher bakers gave out Ostreicher cookies 😉

P

Peiser and Pfeizer

R

Reisz puffs

S

Our last name is Stark so we went with StarKbucks one year 

SchleSinger… musicians 

The “singers” 

Stern’s pastries

This is kinda specific but a girl in my school wore a nightgown for Purim years ago in the front it said “Mindy is….” And the back it said “Shlafrig” – which in Yiddish means tired. But lol this works if your’re Chassidish and your name is Shlafrig.

Siegfried – Chickfrieds – bird watchers

Shtickfrieds – magician
Seig “Freed” = prisoner
“Sick Free – nurses/drs 

Our name is Shain and we did “Shaina panim” – everyone wore a diff emoji on a shirt!

We “stern” cowboys!

T

Teitelbaum – race car drivers. Tagline: “taking home the title-baum” 

U

Uhr – Uhrthodontist, Popc”Uhrn”b, Uhrban Pops

SnUHRklers 

FlUHRist 

UHRthdentist

hUHRs backriders

UHRchester band

UHRange

DUHR MEN

3 blind “Weiss”

My sister is Weiss. She came up with a lifetime worth of rhymes: Weiss mice, slice of Weiss, Weiss ice, sugar and spice and everything Weiss…

“Wine”bergs

Z

Zoockerman for zoo (Zuckerman)

Misc.

My sister in law did this last Purim with the first names of her kids: Batsheva was a 7/11 slurpee, husband Abe was Abe’s Ice Cream, kid with initials h-m was H&M. Elazar Menachem was Menachem’s Dips. She put them together in a very creative and adorable way.

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