World of Knaster

My last name, Knaster, is not common. When I was growing up, everybody I knew named Knaster either lived in my house or was no more distant than a first cousin. When I was 7 years old, my family happened upon Knaster's Department Store on a trip to San Bernardino. This caused great excitement. But that was about it.

Then the Internet came along. In about 1994, I found a guy in Sweden whose nickname was Knaster. I emailed him, and he told me that "knaster" in Swedish was slang for "cracking voice or scratchy record". I discovered that there's a Knaster-Tarski theorem, and other knasteria, courtesy of Bronisław Knaster. There's a Knaster inheritance procedure. And a whole bunch of people out there named Knaster that I've never even met, including a county official in Monterey and a prolific movie electrician.

I heard about Knaster Records, from Europe. I guess they're scratchy, or they have singers with cracking voices. (They seem to be gone now.)

Then, one day, a friend surprised me with a picture of the popular Knaster brand of hemp from Germany. (Eventually those nice folks sent me a tin of Knaster air freshener, along with a couple of Knaster lighters. Cool.)

Then another friend gave me a bag of Knaster decorative rocks from Ikea. Amazing.

Thanks to the Internet, I'm not alone any more.

Comments

[Mick]

Even though the name is fairly common, I have the same thing with my mother's maiden name, Christensen. Whenever I see it, I think they MUST be long lost cousins.

[Jeremy Knaster]

Well, you've found one, indeed. Yeah, that's me on imdb. You might also be interested to know that an artist who painted under her married last name of Lozano is my first cousin, Lee Knaster. Known to the art world as Lee Lozano, currently displayed at the Museum of Modern Art here in New York. Alas, she passed several years ago, but her art lives on forever. Traveling abroad last year I looked everywhere for that Knaster tobacco but was not able to locate any. My dad once went to Paris and found a knaster there, but that was it. Good luck in your search!

[Laurel Sheer Berez]

My mom was Shirley Frances Knaster Sheer. She and her mom and two brothers came to NY in 1928, from Nowy Dwor, Poland. Her dad, Abraham came a few years earlier to get established. Mom passed in December 2000, but my grandfather, who was one of 18 siblings (most of them were twins). The descendants are all over the place especially in NYC and So. Cal.