GEN-DE-L Archives

Archiver > GEN-DE > 1997-06 > 0865176934


From: "Celia E. Mitschelen" <>
Subject: Re: German Naming Customs
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 14:55:34 GMT


In <5mo5hq$p9u$1@cobra.minn.net> (Richard
Koontz) writes:

>First, the early Germans (i.e., prior to 1720), came over in the first
>generation of people whose last names had "crystallized".
>--- And if there are any name experts out there, please bear with me.
>I believe the German last names were not "required" until about 1675
>or thereabouts. The Princes, etc. decided people needed to be better
>identified, and they edicted the selection and retention of last
>names.

I have been waiting to see an authoritative answer to this. Failing
that I can state from my reading of the Church books of Malmsheim,
Wuerttemberg, that except for minor variations in spelling that appear
to be due to various writers, the names have remained the same since
1560 when the records began. I have been doing the entire early village
so it is not just one name.

I do not know if this is an isolated occurance or not. I learned early
on that one cannot speak for all of "Germany".

>Until about that year, people used names as they felt appropriate.
>Sometimes the last name stuck. Sometimes you had the naming patterns
>similar to Sweden, where Fritz Heinsen was the son of Heinrich
>Fritzen, and so forth. (Not widespread, this, but it also
>"happened").

Patronymic naming was primarily found in Northwestern Germany, as I
understand it. The area that fluctuated between German and Danish
control followed the Danish pattern. Schleswig-Holstein issued a decree
banning this naming practice in 1771. Some of the points of this decree
seem odd. Parents had to choose a permanent surname for their child at
christening and see that it was properly recorded. Once done it was
against the law to change it. I'm with it so far but rather
incomprehensible to me was that each child in a family could be given a
different surname. Another point was: A surname could not be given that
would 'elevate one's social position'.

A second degree was issued in 1812 and yet another in 1822; it was very
difficult to persuade people to change their naming practices.

>So you have a situation where the prototypical "three brothers from
>Alsace", all in their twenties and thirties, themselves might have
>known their own grandfather by a different "family" name than
>the one they carried.

I'm sure someone can correct me if I am wrong but I believe Alsace did
not have patronymic naming, it would have been influenced by France and
you do find 'French' names there and in nearby areas occasionally.

{snip}
>After 1800, the great age of creativity drew to a close. It still
>crops up well into the century, but changes became so infrequent that
>today, looking backward, we are astounded that things were so very
>different back then.

I'm sure this is true of those that had emigrated early and already
established a name, but the 19th century immigrants still had the same
problems of getting their names recorded correctly. One did not have to
be illiterate to have some recorder write his name down as he thought
he had heard it. Most did not read or write English even if they were
'educated'. He heard his name pronounced perhaps, so thought it was
correct. The phonics of different languages varied a great deal and if
an Irishman or Englishman that did not understand German wrote the name
phonetically it would not look at all like the German name.

I found this in the introduction to Witter's 'Deutsch-
Englische Schreib und Lese - Fibel fuer Amerikanische Freischulen'. For
those that don't know German phonetics this will give some idea of the
differences in the two languages. Read properly there should be no
'german accent'.

"If ju loern a littel bit ewery dei, ju will suhn now a greet diehl."

Celia

This thread: