GEN-DE-L Archives

Archiver > GEN-DE > 1996-07 > 0836242580


From: Siegfried Rambaum <>
Subject: Re: Weckbacher/Veckbacker
Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 13:36:20 -0400
In-Reply-To: <31D8182C.38D@eznets.canton.oh.us>


On Mon, 1 Jul 1996, Joe Weckbacher wrote:

> Currently dispute amongst family members is the correct spelling,
> and meaning, of surname. My German friend, Helmar, tells me it
> is bread baker as in, Weck, and ends in ker not her; with an umlatt
> over the a. Another native German friend tells me Helmar may be wrong
> and the spelling and meaning may vary with place from whence my
> forefathers came. If Hannover be that place, what be that spelling and
> meaning?

You know what? You are both right, and you both may be wrong as long as
you have not unearthed the real origin of it..

For WECKBACHER, this name might really be derived from a geographical root.
BACH is the German word for CREEK ... quite a lot of creeks have names,
that end in -back ... so why not VECKBACK, wherever that creek might
flow ... Surnames made out of one word, that could have a meaning in
German but not necessarily need to have one, and of -bacher are pretty
common in southern Germany and in Austria...

For VECKBACKER ... it might be an phonetical error. Hardly any American
pronounces the ch in -back correctly, it always comes out as a k ...
and th Veck might have gotten written this way along the same logic.

But somehow I doubt that ... A baker would not make the least of his
products being part of his name. Weck (UK-English: Little bread; US-English:
Rolls or Buns; NY-upstate-English: Weck ... I was baffled about that, too)
Bakers have more prestigious products, and would be inclined to make one
of them part of their family name...

I would place my bets on WECKBACHER deriving from some geographical
reference, with a highly probability of your ancestors immigrating from
Austria or southern/southeastern parts of Bavaria... If so, then the
WECK-part in your name has nothing to do with baking, as WECK is not the
common reference in those regions.

If you ask for a WECK in some bakery in the Rhein-Main-region of Germany,
you will get one. If you ask for a WECK in a bakery in southern Bavaria
or in Austria, all you will get will be just a blank stare. They call a
WECK a SEMMEL down there... This too speaks against the Weckbacher name
having anything to do with the bread/pastry-trade.

I wonder, if there might be some geographical servers around for rivers
and creeks ....

This thread: