The following was received in 1999 from Daniel Birman,living in Buenos Aires Argentina and addressed to a long list of persons named "Birman." who have internet e-mail addresses. I've posted it here to see if his idea of creating a web-site for "the Birmans" will bear fruit.
Hello Everybody...
You might be asking yourself who is this loonie, well some of you already had some contact with me, and know who am I. My name is Daniel Damián Birman, I am 21 years old, I have a job and am a student, I live in Argentina, in Buenos Aires City. It doesn't mean that I have a lot of free time, on the contrary, I can only do this on the wee hours. What is my objective? Simple, I would like all of us to know there are other Birmans. Yes, we don't know each other, but have the same last name, which is not very common, and it is almost sure that not far away, our roots are crossed. I would like to see a web page where you can find information about our last name, where we can put our first and last name, as well as country of origin. Personally, I don't have a lot of experience on this, since I work in accounting, but if there is somebody with some ideas or is willing to do something like this, would be very nice. Well, it is time to leave I am going to bed since I have to go to work tomorrow.
I am sending a gift, the origin of the name Birman, I hope that the translation to English is accurate.
My apologies to the people that felt intimidated or bothered, It was not my intention to cause any trouble. With my best wishes to all the Birman families of the world!!!
Daniel Damián Birman.
danieldb@ciudad.com.ar
THE HISTORY OF THE "BIRMAN" NAME
The Russian name "Birman" is, in essence, of German origin and it bears an occupational characteristic. We can say that the most interesting and old names are those that derive from the task or profession of the original bearer of it. The occupational names provide us an inventory of all the common tasks performed in Medieval Europe, and give us a small insight about the life of our ancestors. The name Birman, comes from the occupational German word "Biermann", which literally translates as "beer, man" and it refers to a barman. Alternatively, this name could have originated with the old personal German name "Berman", which comes from the old German names "bero" (bear) and "man" (man). The variants of this name are: Birmann and Biermann. One of the old references of this name is a registration of Christina Birman, who married with Samuel Oesser on January 21, 1680 in Jachymov. In any event, the research is still going on, because it is possible that this name was registered before the date indicated initially.
The German names were introduced in Russia and Ukrania at the begining of the 13th century. After that, a group of German farmers were granted some land located on the banks of the Volga river and, when WWWI started, there were millions of Germans inside the borders of the Russian empire. One very famous bearer of this name was the Russian actress Serafina Germanovna Birman, who lived from 1890 til 1976***
COAT OF ARMS: (SHIELD): A Saber (or sword), with three silver shamrocks. Interpretation: Saber (black) means constancy and the shamrock represents fertility and opulence (abundance).
Coat of arms:
Origin: Russia.
We'd love to hear from you. Send us e-mail 
