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Baronial names
I think I've finished my first chapter of the "Raoul's wife" story, although I still haven't decided on a definite name for it. Not sure how successful it is as a standalone fandom-blind cliché-breaking story — I wanted a relative 'happy' ending hinting that the wife has no cause for jealousy, but it's hard to make that compatible with the overall story arc that she does have at least some cause. I need to try at least to clarify that in the next chapter.
I'm not sure how overall successful it will be in terms of deliberately misdirecting a fandom audience, either; my record on that is mixed, with Teach Me to Live being generally successful in its reception, and Count Philippe Takes a Hand not really working out.
Meanwhile I'm busy trying to establish a credible surname for Hertha's family — a quick glance at Wikipedia yields the rather unpromising information that the number of Jews in Vienna actually ballooned after 1867, so whatever her father's reason for coming to Paris in the late 1870s it certainly wasn't because the environment at home had become unwelcoming. Fortunately the plot doesn't actually require that...
I wanted him to be a Baron, which seemed fairly generic and an acceptable level of alliance, and Wikipedia does at least confirm that this is an appropriate title for a self-made family. They don't have to have a title at all, but I feel that marrying a banker's daughter would probably be more socially acceptable if she could be deemed foreign nobility rather than simply filthy rich.
I think they're probably not actually Jewish but descended from Jews or converted a generation or so back, because the number of actual noble Jewish families in Vienna was very small and verifiable, whereas the number of Austrian nobles and quasi-nobles who were allied with Jewish families at some point in their ancestry was high: Austrian History Yearbook. I don't think the story is going to go into any of this in any detail, but I ought to get it straight in my head.
I'm not sure how overall successful it will be in terms of deliberately misdirecting a fandom audience, either; my record on that is mixed, with Teach Me to Live being generally successful in its reception, and Count Philippe Takes a Hand not really working out.
Meanwhile I'm busy trying to establish a credible surname for Hertha's family — a quick glance at Wikipedia yields the rather unpromising information that the number of Jews in Vienna actually ballooned after 1867, so whatever her father's reason for coming to Paris in the late 1870s it certainly wasn't because the environment at home had become unwelcoming. Fortunately the plot doesn't actually require that...
I wanted him to be a Baron, which seemed fairly generic and an acceptable level of alliance, and Wikipedia does at least confirm that this is an appropriate title for a self-made family. They don't have to have a title at all, but I feel that marrying a banker's daughter would probably be more socially acceptable if she could be deemed foreign nobility rather than simply filthy rich.
I think they're probably not actually Jewish but descended from Jews or converted a generation or so back, because the number of actual noble Jewish families in Vienna was very small and verifiable, whereas the number of Austrian nobles and quasi-nobles who were allied with Jewish families at some point in their ancestry was high: Austrian History Yearbook. I don't think the story is going to go into any of this in any detail, but I ought to get it straight in my head.
Other useful lists of surnames: