is anyone familiar with the yiddish word "shatzi"?

I’ve grown up in a Jewish household hearing yiddishkeit all the time, but I’ve never heard this one so I’d be intersted to know the answer too.

In German, Schatz is “treasure.” I think Shatzi is a form of that.

Just asked my mother she speaks the language. She never heard of it. However, it might very well be, cause the language is broken german anyway and there is a difference in let’s say thee way. Jews from Ukraine speak verses Jews from Poland

there’s a baby names site for yiddish names and it says that shatzi means “deer.” as in the animal. which is funny because in german the word shatzi means “dear” as in sweetie. but the name/word isn’t in any of my yiddish dictionaries (i have a few), so i’m trying to find out as much information as i can… must not have been too well-used…

I remember my grandmother calling me that when I was very little. My father called me “schepsilah.”

I just found this: Schatzi

“Schatzi” beats “Mausi”
According to a popular German magazine, about 70% of all German couples use a pet name (Kosename) with each other. The most popular Kosename is Schatz (“treasure”) or one of its many variations: Schatzi, Schätzchen, Schätzelchen, Schätzlein, etc.

Sorry. I and family are Jewish. Grandparents spoke Yiddish and Yinglish.

thanks gailcalled and everyone else. gailcalled were your grandparents from germany, or eastern europe, or somewhere else?

@Unacornea; all from schtels (little villages) in Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia. Everyone got to the US (1888 – 1907) w. the Tzar’s army nipping at their heels or fear of pogroms driving the family across borders in the dead of night…Both my grandfathers spoke 6 languages (Lithuanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Yiddish, biblical Hebrew, German) before learning English here.

When my mat. grandfather arrived in NYC, one of his relatives gave him a banana; gramps ate it, skin and all.

oh wow, thanks so much for your story! i was wondering because it seems like shatzi is a commonly used german word, so i wanted to know if its usage was specific to the yiddish of jews who lived in germany.
my family lived in a polish shtetl, can’t remember the name, i know my great grandmother survived really vicious pogroms and came to chicago after she got married, around 1910.

i love the banana story!

Yes. we played it with dice while I was growing up.

is it possible that it comes from the same root as “chatzi” (or hadji, hatzi etc) which means someone baptised in the Jordan river? In Greek “Hatzi” is a common beginning of surnames, as in the Cypriot pop star Hatzigiannis (ie one of his ancestors was called John and was baptised in the Jordan). Since this is a tradition held by Jews just as much as by Christians, it makes sense that the word would have originated from Hebrew.

In fact Jesus should have been called Chatzijesus (but instead he was called Christ, which means the same thing).