POSEN-L Archives

From: <>
Subject: Re: surname of Maureschat
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 15:06:41 -0500
References: <42F1AC77.6080900@satx.rr.com>

Greetings!

Gwendalynn Gohlke Dunn <> asked:

> I am trying to find out as much information as possible about the
> surname of MAURESCHAT. My friend's grandfather and grandmother immigrated
> about 1904-05, but he doesn't know whether they came in through New York
> or Texas.
> I haven't been able to find very much about this surname. I don't
> think that it is very common. Could this name have been spelled
> differently early on, and if so what other spellings should we look at?

That is a rather unusual name. When you see a surname ending in -AT in a
German-language context, one real possibility is that it's a Germanized form
of a Lithuanian surname that originally ended in -aitis, which means "son
of." Since parts of East Prussia bordered on Lithuania, it's not at all odd
to see a mixing of German and Lithuanian names in the area.

The two-volume _Lietuviu pavardziu zodynas_ [Dictionary of Lithuanian
Surnames] lists MAURISCHAT as a name seen in official documents,
corresponding to Lithuanian MAURIS^AITIS -- I'm using S^ to indicate there's
a little v mark over the first S, that indicates it is pronounced like our
SH, or like German SCH. So the process whereby this name was Germanized went
as follows:

1) remove the -is ending from MAURIS^AITIS to produce MAURIS^AIT
2) modify the ending to -AT = MAURIS^AT
3) spell the S^ the German way, as SCH - MAURISCHAT

Obviously this same name could also be spelled MAURESCHAT, since it would
almost exactly the same, and surname spellings are notoriously inconsistent,
even before you factor in what English-speakers did to the surnames of
immigrants from central and eastern Europe.

As I said, -aitis means "son of," and the Dictionary suggests that MAURIS^-
part came from a variant of the given name Mauricas, which is the same as
Maurice in English. The authors of the Dictionary kept a card file of name
forms and where they encountered them, and they had 8 instances of this
surname MAUTIS^AITIS/MAURISCHAT showing up in the district of Pagegiai near
S^ilute, and 4 in the district of S^ilute itself.

The online Lithuanian phonebook at http://telefonai.takas.lt/ shows no one
named MAURIS^AITIS or MAURISCHAT, and no one with a name beginning MAURE-.
But those listings are hardly comprehensive -- not everyone has a phone, and
not everyone with a phone agrees to be listed. What's interesting is that 14
people are listed with the name MAURUS^AITIS -- with a U before the S^, not
I or E. (Some of them are married females bearing the form MAURUS^AITIENE,
but this is regarded as a form of the same basic name). There was also a
Rudolf MAURUS^AT in Kaunas and an Ortvinas MAURUS^ATAS in Kaunas.

The Surname Dictionary says these names may come from the term _maura_,
which it defines as "dirty, slovenly person." But I notice in standard
Lithuanian _maurus_ means "Moor," which comes from the same basic root as
the given name Maurice! I wouldn't be surprised if these names also come
from a variant of Maurice, or referred to an ancestor who had a dark
complexion and thus looked kind of like a Moor.

So my best guess is that you're dealing with a German modification of the
Lithuanian surname MAURIS^AITIS, which may have meant "son of Maurice,"
though "son of the Moor" or "son of the messy guy" are also possible
interpretations. MAURUS^AITIS would technically be a separate name, but it'd
obviosuly be pretty easy for these two to be variants of the same basic
name.

In any case, at least now you've got some more ideas on possible spellings!

Fred Hoffman
Author, _Polish Surnames: Origins & Meanings_

This thread:

• surname of Maureschat by Gwendalynn Gohlke Dunn <>
  • Re: [POSEN] surname of Maureschat by Diana & Jay <>

  • Re: surname of Maureschat by <>