Origin of the name Portov

The family name Portov which may sound Russian, in fact apparently has ancient sephardic roots. Most probably it comes not from the word "port" but from the name of the Portuguese city Porto - second by magnitude in Portugal after Lissabon. In the end of the 19-th century Porto was the main town of the Portuguese province Entre-Douro-E-Minho.

In our view the Jewish name Portov is a derivative of the name of the famous medieval Jewish family Porto that was banished from Portugal in the end of the 15-th century and settled later in Italy.

Below we will mention several very well-known members of the family:

Abraham ben Yechiel ha-Cohen Porto, a typographist from Verona, who lived in the end of the 16-th century. He is an author of Kabbalistic interpretations of Jewish words, a collection of poetry and commentaries for the Psalms and the Torah.

His brother - Moisei ben Yechiel ha-Cohen Porto was a rabbi in Rovigo at about 1600. He authored "Palge Majim" (Venice 1608), a work on the question of the Rovigo mikve that was a subject of a debate in which 70 rabbis took part. Moisei ben Yechiel collected in his work 28 opinions in favor of his decision, while the opinions of his opponents were subject to very clever critics.

Menahem Tzion Porto ha-Cohen (also Immanuil Porto) - a rabbi and a mathematician, died in Padua about 1660. He is the author of several works including those on mathematics and astronomy - "Breve Istituzione della Geographia" (Padua, 1640), "Diplomologia, qua duo scripturae miracula de regressu solis tempore Hiskiae et ejus immobilitate tempore Josuae declarantur" (ib., 1643), "Porto Astronomico" (ib., 1636), "Ober la-Socher" (Venice, 1627).

Zeharia ben Efraim Porto - a scientist and a philanthropist of the 17-th century. He was the rabbi of Rome. He died in Florence in 1671. He authored "Asaf ha-Mazkir" (Venice, 1675) — a dictionary of explanations and interpretations of hagadic pieces in the Talmud.

It is known that part of this famous, at first Portuguese and then Italian, family immigrated to eastern Europe in 18-19 centuries. (By the way, at least one more family tracing its roots from the town Porto is known that in the middle ages also immigrated to eastern Europe. The name of the members of this family is Rappaport. They all are descendants and relatives of the famous doctor and wiseman Abraham from Porto who wrote on his family symbol in Hebrew «Avraham Rofe mi Porto» (Abraham - doctor from Porto). This writing was subsequently shortened to Rappaport (Rofe from Porto).

The family name Portov is very rare and most probably all people having it are members of a single family. A family with the name written as Purtov can be encountered in the 19-th century documents on Suvalkov gubernia (today this is Polish territory bordering with Lithuania). Also Portov families lived in Lithuania in Kaunas. Part of them moved in the 20-th century to the USA and changed the family name to Portoff.