Baum

The German surname suffixes Stein, Berg, Mann, Feld all pun with “veil” or “disguise”, that’s why they are so popular with spook aristocrats. It should be possible that the common German surname suffix Baum is also a pun, since it’s also very popular with spooks. However, there seems to be no word in the ancient languages with those consonants that means “veil” or “disguise”.

However, there is a Semitic compound with the consonants B-M, which means “with a veil” or “in a veil”:

• The general meaning of the Semitic word root ˁm / ˁmm / ˁmˁm is “dimming” / “darkening” / “obscuring”. Some derivations are translated as “veil” or “veiled”.
• The Semitic prefix b- means “with” or “in”, among other things.
• So the Semitic phrase b-ˁm can mean “with a veil” or “in a veil”. Some vowelizations may even be somewhat close to Baum.

Since Semitic rozen means “ruler”, the very common spook name Rosen-Baum would then mean “ruler with a veil”.

Note: The root ˁm in the sense of “dimming” & “darkening” seems to have generally dropped out of use, with all its derivations, so a modern Hebrew speaker without special education wouldn’t understand this pun.