German surname meanings
Identifying German names is an easy task especially if you have a little knowledge of German. If you don’t we are here to help you:-). Most of the German names have their roots in Germanic middle ages. German names have certain characteristics:
- Usually names that contain the vowel clusters ue and oe indicate umlauts (Schroeder -> Schröder), providing a clue to German origins.
- The names with the vowel cluster ei (Klein) are also mostly German.
- If the beginning consonant clusters is Kn (Knopf), Pf (Pfizer), Str (Stroh), Neu (Neumann), or Sch (Schneider) they are probably German.
- If the name ends in -mann (Baumann), -stein (Frankenstein), -berg (Goldberg), -burg (Steinburg), -bruck (Zurbrück), -heim (Ostheim), -rich (Heinrich), -lich (Heimlich), -thal (Rosenthal), and -dorf (Dusseldorf) then they likely to be German.
The Origins of German Last Names
German family names are more often than not derived from following sources:
- Patronymic & Matronymic Surnames – It is based on a parent’s first name. This category of surnames is more common in other European countries than in Germany. They are found largely in the Northwestern areas of Germany; however they may be found in other areas of Germany too. (Niklas Albrecht - Niklas son of Albrecht).
- Occupational Surnames – Here the last names are based on the person’s job or trade (Lukas Fischer - Lukas the Fisherman). They are more commonly found in German families than almost any other culture. Generally these three suffixes point to a German occupational name:
- er (one who), commonly found in names such as Fischer, one who fishes;
- hauer (hewer or cutter), used in names such as Baumhauer, tree chopper; and
- macher (one who makes), found in names like Schumacher, one who makes shoes.
- Descriptive Surnames – It is based on a unique quality or physical feature of the individual. They are often developed from the person’s pet name.(Karl Braun - Karl with brown hair)
- Geographical Surnames – They are derived from the place of the farmhouse from which the first bearer and his family resided or trace their origin from. (Leon Meer - Leon from by the sea). Sometimes they originate from the state, region, or village of the first bearer’s origin, which often reveals a divide among the tribes and regions, i.e. low German, middle German and upper German. (Paul Cullen - Paul from Koeln/Cologne). Usually the surnames preceded by “on” are confused as a sign that an ancestor was an aristocrat . It need not be so. They are often clues to geographical surnames. (Jacob von Bremen - Jacob from Bremen).
German Farm Names
The locality names and farm names are often named after the families that own them. The farm name usually comes from the original owner of the farm, so when a person moves on to a farm, he changes his name to that of the farm! If the wife has inherited the farm, then a man might also change his surname to his wife’s maiden name. Thus children in same family can have different surnames. Am sure these facts seem interesting unless you are a genealogist;-)