Marx (surname)

The surname Marx is a Germanic surname, believed to originate with Mark the Evangelist and the Roman praenomen Marcus, the latter deriving from the god Mars. The similarly-spelled Marks may share etymology with march (territory), especially near Wales, but most British Marxes have Jewish roots, typically in the Rhineland or former Pale of Settlement. Famously, Karl Marx's father, born Herschel HaLevi Mordechai in Saarlouis, assimilated in 1817 or 1818 to Heinrich Marx because Prussia banned Jews from public service; as Karl Marx's grandfather was also known as Levy Marx and his great-great-grandfather as Mordechai Marx, the name was already current in the family. Amateur genealogist Colin Shelley suggests that the name Marx' prevalence there may have arisen as a macaronic acronym for māšīaḥ rex.