Allow me to clarify :

Vinitsa is a town in the Ukraine, as mentioned. Last names/surnames were not used in those days in that part of the world. Hence US immigration officials would ask immigrants some basic question, and create a surname. Vinitsky actually means "from Vinitsa". Sort of like saying in English slang "oh, he is such a New Yorker."

Many families have surnames derived from their town of origin, but many more have surnames derived from the occupations. Thus a shoemaker becomes the Sandler family, etc.

Tuvia is a Biblical Hebrew name. It was one of the names given to Moses.

>>>>Then the surname would be Vinitska, which it is not. But then this habit of having female versions of surnames which are adjectives is mostly gone in many slavic countries.
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>>>It is possible that Tuvia's last name is derived from the name of a city in Ukraine, Vinnytsya, which in Russian and Ukrainian has a female ending. This must have been what confused Metin :)
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>>Not actuallly. I just know about (-ov, -ova) bulgarian surname female versions because of my wife was a Bulgaria immigrant. Just Tuvia came me a more smooth name... :)
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>>In Turkey usually women names prononcues smoother...
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>>I'll tell a story with my poor english, sorry; I remember a novel I read when I was a child. Writer waits for his passport at the custom. A Italian soldier shouts names with passports in his hands. Periodically soldier shouts as "Sicihimiditi". He thinks she should be a princess and he dreams the princess. At the last he see the last passport at soldier's hand and he still shouts as "Sicihimiditi". Soldier can't prononcue Schmidth and add i to between every consonant. Maybe Tuvia's prononcue is not smooth or really smooth... :)
>
>LOL