large cities (such as Prague or Frankfurt am Main) began to adopt various surnames. Surnames derived from the name of the matriarch of the family were adopted by some households. For example, the surname Rivkes is derived from the female name Rivkeh, the Yiddish form of Rebecca, so the surname literally means "Rivka's". The Slavic language-influenced counterpart is Rivkin. Other surnames came from the man's trade such as Metzger (butcher) or Becker (baker), and a few derived from personal attributes, such as Joffe (beautiful), or special events in the family history. The majority of Middle Age surname adoption came from place names (for example Shapiro, from Shpira, Speyer, a Rhenanian city known for its famous Jewish community in the 11th century), often a town name, typically the birthplace of the founder of a rabbinical or other dynasty. These names would permutate to various forms as families moved, such as the original Welsch becoming Wallach, Wlock, or Block. Since these surnames did not have the official status that modern ones do, often the old surname would be dropped and a new one adopted after the family moved their household. Many surnames in the Netherlands derived from the German versions. For example, Waal derived from Wahl and Voorzanger (Chazan) derived from Vorsänger. The process of assigning permanent surnames to Jewish families (most of which are still used to this day) began in Austria. On 23 July 1787, five years after the Edict of Tolerance, the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II issued a decree called Das Patent über die Judennamen which compelled the Jews to adopt German surnames. Prussia did so soon after, beginning with Silesia: the city of Breslau in 1790, the Breslau administrative region in 1791, the Liegnitz region in 1794. In 1812, when Napoleon had occupied much of Prussia, surname adoption was mandated for the unoccupied parts; and Jews in the rest of Prussia adopted surnames in 1845. Napoleon also, in a decree of July 20, 1808, insisted upon the Jews adopting fixed names. His decree covered all lands west of the Rhine; and many other parts of Germany required surname-adoption within a few years. The city of Hamburg was the last German state to complete the process, in 1849. At the end of the 18th century after the Partition of Poland and later after the Congress of Vienna the Russian Empire acquired a large number of Jews who did