[HS] Lesson 8: German names from Baden-Wurttemberg

[Sara L Uckelman <liana@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings!

Hope you enjoyed your spring break from heraldry school last
week.  I never had enough time at a computer to write up anything
decent while on vacation. :)

My current project is something I started a few years ago, got
hung up on, and came back to about a month ago to try to complete
before I have to return my source book to the library.  My source
is Schmid, Peter, _Der Deutsche Orden und die Reichssteuer des 
Gemeinen Pfennigs von 1495: Die Grundherrschaft des Deutschen Ordens 
im Reich an der Wende vom 15. zum 16 Jahrhundert_. (Neustadt: Degener 
in Kommission, 2000.)

This appears to be a tax record of various cities in south-western
Germany taken by the Teutonic knights (so says my library catalog
entry for the book; I haven't really found anything about the 
Teutonic knights in the source, but I also don't read German).  The
entries are grouped by family, so it's usually the head of the house-
hold, then his wife, their kids, any in-laws, aunts/uncles, maids/
apprentices/servants/etc.  Usually only the head of the household
has a byname, which means that the only women that tend to have bynames
are widows who are the heads of their households.

Germany in our period was not a unified country and did not speak a
unified language.  There were quite a few different dialects that
were spoken in different regions.  The main division between dialects
is between Low German, spoken in the north, and High German, spoken
in the south (confusing, yes).  The middle area in between is Middle
German, funnily enough.  A rough map of these dialects can be seen
here:

http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa051898.htm

The cities of origin of the people who were being taxed in this
document all appear to be in Baden-Wurttemberg, in the south-east.
I'm still in the process of transcribing the data and compiling it
into an article; so far I have transcribed data from the following
cities:

Frankfurt, Santhoff, Meyntz, Stoxberg, Stockheim, Geylich{sz}heim, 
Hemer{sz}heim, Pffalheym, Lo"ffelsteltz, Wagwissen, Seylthall, Dwebach, 
Newbronn, Reckerschtall, Zy{sz}veltt, Holtzprunn, Sylthall, Dwebach, 
Oberbalbach, Ottelfingen, Iger{sz}heym, Newenhaus, Newses, Harthausen, 
Bern{sz}felden, Markel{sz}heym, Althausen, Stadt Bad Mergentheim, 
Horneck, Gundelsheim, Bettingen, Durrenbach, Hexspur, Dieffenbach, 
Heinsheim, Kirchhausen, Talheim, Uwerbach, Rudenspur, Huchelheim, 
Sulme, Duttenbergk, Jagstfelt, Offenheim, Oberngrie{sz}heim, Bachenheim

(You'll remember that {sz} stands for the German s-z ligature, and
o" represents an o-umlaut)

This web page lists the cities of Land Baden-Wurttemberg:
http://www.go4travel.com/Country/Germany/Land-Baden-Wurttemberg.htm

You'll see that most of these cities can be found in this list.  I 
even found a nifty map of the area (albeit modern, but hey, cities
don't tend to move very much):

http://www.rollintl.com/roll/badenmap.htm

It's not clear exactly what dialect of German was spoken in Baden-
Wurttemberg in 1495.  Talan Gwynek every time he looks at the data
from this source seems to change his mind on which he thinks it is.
:)  The only thing that's clear is that it is not Low German; it is
either Middle or High German.  There are a few idiosyncracies in
the spellings; one is a preponderance for doubling <n>, e.g. <Hanns>
instead of <Hans>.

The data as sorted and compiled so far can be found here:

"German Given Names from 1495"
http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/german/german1495.html

I won't be adding any information on surnames till all the given
names are completed. :)

I've sorted the given names by frequency, grouping variants together
and then listing the variants alphabetically, with their number of
occurrences, and the cities in which they have been found so far.
As might be expected, a form of <John> is far and away the most
popular men's name.  I have so far 476 instances (and probably by
the end of the evening when I've done some more sorting and
compiling after sending out this lesson, those numbers will have
changed slightly) of forms of <Hanns>, whereas the #2 popular man's
name is <Contz> at 129.  There are 17 different variant forms of
<John>, which is also more than any other single name has.  Most
of the forms are diminutives, which can be recognized by the
endings <-lein>, <-lin>, <-el>, <-le>, and <-in>:

 Hanle
 Han{sz}lein
 Hennlin
 Hennsel
 Hennslin
 Henn{sz}lin
 Hensin
 Henslin
 Hen{sz}lin

I'll discuss the rest of the names in turn, but only the ones where
I actually have something useful to say.  I encourage you to look
at the article to see the wide variety of names and variant spellings.

#2: <Contz>.  <Contz> is a pet form of <Conrad>.  <Contz> was so 
common that it itself had pet forms, including <Conlin>, <Contzlin>, 
and <Cuntzlin>.
#5: <Claus>, 67 instances.  <Claus> is more common than its full form,
<Niclaus>.  Like <Contz>, there's even an example of the pet form 
<Claus> with its own diminutive ending: <Cleuslin>
#7: <Heintz>, 60 instances.  This is a pet form of <Heinrich>; it is
like <Contz> and <Claus> in the presence of the diminutive form
<Heintzlin>.
#9: <Wendel>.  Quite common in this source, but appears to be rare to
unknown in surrounding areas.  I haven't the faintest idea why.
#10: <Lenhart>.  Some of the variants of this name, <Lennhardt> and
<Lennhart>, show the distinctive double <n>.
#11: <Endres>.  I'm not positive, but I think this is a form of <Andrew>,
though I'm not quite sure where the terminal <-s> comes from.
#14: <Fritz>.  A pet form of <Friderich>.
#15: <Steffan>.  Some of the variants here show more dialect 
distinctiveness: <Stepffan> and <Steppfan>.
#17: <Lorentz>, also found as <Lorenntz> with the double <n>.
#18: <Mathis>.  A form of <Matthew>, via the variant <Mathias>.
#19: <Paulin>.  From <Paul>.
#20: <Vlrich>.  This name is spelled almost equally <Vlrich> and
<Ulrich>, showing the <U/V> interchange in German even this late.
#21: <Thoman>.  A form of <Thomas>.  I don't know where the <n>
came from or where the <s> went.
#24: <Dietz>.  A pet form of <Diether>, which is in turn from
<Dietrich>, which is from <Dideric>, which is from <Theodoric>.
#25: <Jecklin>.  This is a pet form of some name, but it's not
clear what the root name is.
#26: <Wilhelm>.  Not nearly as popular as in other times and places 
in Germany, but still making a moderate showing.
#28: <Gilg>.  I don't recognize this name, and am not confident
that a) it is in fact masculine, b) it is in fact a given name and
not a byname, c) that <Jylge> is a variant of it.  I've never come
across anything like this before (though in the feminine list there
is one clear feminine example).
#30: <Ekarius>.  I don't know the origin of this one.
#31: <Melchior>.  <Caspar>, <Melchior>, and <Balthassar> were the
names of the three wisemen.  <Melchior> here is fairly uncommon, and
of the 6 people by this name, three of them had brothers named
<Caspar>. :)
#32: <Wolff>.  Both a pet form of names beginning in <Wolf-> and a
name in its own right.
#33: <Balthassar>.  See note for <Melchior>
#35: <Bestlin>.  This is a pet form, as evidenced by the ending <-lin>,
but I'm not sure of what.  Perhaps <Sebastian>.
#36: <Craft>.  Another unusual name that I don't recognize.
#38: <Kilian>.  This is the German form of the name of an Irish monk
who was a missionary to Germany in one of the first centuries A.D.
He must've been really popular for his name to remain in use this
long!
#42: <Veyt>.  I don't recnogize this one either.
#45: <Seytz>.  I'm not positive that <Seicz> is a form of <Seitz> or
<Seytz>.
#48: <Cristoffel>.  The German form of <Christopher>
#49: <Engel>.  This is most commonly a woman's name, but there's a
few masculine instances here.
#50: <Honn>.  This and its variants might be forms of <Hanns>, but
if they are, they're unusual: I haven't seen forms of <Hanns> with
<o> as the initial vowel, and all three variants here lack the
internal or terminal <s>.
#53: <Wolfganng>.  The variant <Wolffganngk> shows in full glory the
weird penchant for doubling consonants almsot at random.
#54: <Allexannder>.  See note above. :)
#63: <Lucx> and <Lux>.  I think this is a form of <Luke>; <Luke>
originally derives from Latin <lux> 'light'.
#65: <Sixt>.  I believe this is a shortened form of <Sixtus>
#67: <Seyfridt>.  A distant cousin of <Siegfried>.
#87: <Berlin>.  Nope, not the name of the city, but rather a pet
form of some name beginning <Ber->, with the diminutive end <-lin>.

In total, there are 137 different men's names.  On to the women's
names!

The most popular woman's name are the variants of <Margareth>, with
14 different variant forms for a total of 405 instances - quite
comparable with <Hanns> and it's forms, which is something you can't
always say about the most popular women's name (given that usually
there are quite a bit fewer women's names recorded in a source than
men's).

As with other names that have lots of variants, there are quite a
few pet forms.  These are all in either <-lin> or <-lein>:

  Margelein
  Margeliln
  Mergelein
  Mergelin
  Merglin

with the exception of <Grede>.

#2: <Els>.  A pet form of <Elisabeth>.
#3: <Barbara>.  This name shows a delightful range of pet forms,
including one of my favorites <Berbelin>.
#4: <Katherina>.  St. Katherine was revered throughout all of Germany
and pretty much of all her period, so it's not suprising to see her
name so popular among women.
#6: <Enndlin>.  Given it's <-lin> ending it looks to be a pet form of
some name, but I'm not sure what the root name is.
#7: <Engel>.  This is the German word for 'angel'.
#9: <Genefe>.  I don't recognize this name; my only guess is that it
might be a form of <Genevieve>.
#13: <Applonia>.  <Appolonia> and it's shorter forms <Applonia> and
<Appel> are quite common throughout Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and
Norway.
#23: <Dorlein>.  I'm pretty sure that this is a diminutive of 
<Dorothea>, but I'm not sure enough that <Dorothea> is the root name
to actually group the two together.
#24: <Kwne>.  <Kun>, <Kwne> and <Kwnn> are all pet forms of <Kunigunde>
#26: <Marlein>.  No, the name <Marlene> was not invented for Marlene
Dietrich, though I recall at least one baby name book saying it was.
This is definitely a pet form, possibly from <Margareth>.
#30: <Jonata>.  For all the world these look like feminine forms of
<Jonathan>.  If that's the case, these are the first I've ever seen.
#34: <Fronicka>.  From <Veronica>
#35 & #36: <Rensin> and <Reusin>.  One of these is quite possibly a
scribal mistake for the other, given how similar <u> and <n> look in
many calligraphic hands.
#46: <Gune>.  Got a recalcitrant client?  Why not recommend the name
<Gune>? :)

Pretty much all of the feminine names that are found only once or
twice are ones that are unfamiliar to me.  This lesson's assignment:
Go through the articles on feminine names at the German section of
the Medieval Names Archive, and send me references (remember to
include the title and the URL of your sources) to any name that you
find that occurs once or twice in my list. :)

A note about the diminutive endings.  You'll note that most of them
are <-lin> or <-lein>.  It's not clear where these endings fall,
dialect wise.  The <-el> endings are typical of Bavaria, which is
Middle German, whereas Upper German dialects tended to use <-li> or 
<-le>.  So you can see why it's hard to say exactly what dialect was
spoken in this region.

Like I said earlier, I haven't done much about surnames yet.  However,
some easy things can be said about name constructions:

Everyone had only one given name.
If you had a surname, you had only one, and it was probably 
descriptive of some type.

Even at this late date, the bynames appeared to be used literally
in many cases (not in all cases; there are clear examples of fathers,
sons, and brothers all having the same surname).  The cases where
this is the clearest is when the byname comes *before* the given
name (much like 'Tunnel Bob' and 'Scanner Dan', two of the homeless
people who frequent the university campus I currently attend).  Some
examples of this include:

  Gassenwendel 'alley Wendel'
  Vackelhans 'torch Hans'
  Hoffhen{sz}lin - <hof> means 'yard, farm, court'
  Hoff Hen{sz}lin
  Keller Hanns 'Cellar Hanns'
  Ful Hanns 'lazy Hanns'
  Frisch Anne 'fresh Anne'
  Schmalcz Hanns 'lard Hanns'
  Wisen Contzlin 'wise Contzlin' or 'white Contzlin'
  Be{sz} Hanns - <Be{sz}> is a form of <Betz>, which is a pet form
of <Brechtold>, so <Be{sz}> is probably Hanns's father's name.
  Vogel Henn{sz}lin 'bird Henn{sz}lin'
  Muller Henn{sz}lin 'miller Henn{sz}lin'
  Hasen Hanns 'hare Hanns'
  Mynnen Peter - perhaps from Middle High German <minne> 'pleasant,
attractive appearance'
  Becker Henn{sz}lin 'baker Henn{sz}lin'
  Braun Hanns 'brown Hanns'
  Schwartz Cuntze 'black Cuntze'

And last, but not least, one of my favorite surnames that I have
ever found: <Margredt spring into die rosen> 'Margredt jump into
the roses'.  Imagine the canting arms possibilities!

That's about all for now.  Check the web page for further updates
as I keep working on the data.

As usual, anyone who wants to do the assignment send me your answers,
and I'll collect them and post them at the end of a week.  Any questions,
don't hesitate to ask.

-Aryanhwy



-- 
vita sine literis mors est
http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/
_______________________________________________
heraldry-school mailing list
heraldry-school@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.ellipsis.cx/mailman/listinfo/heraldry-school