What nationality is Brosius?

[Mark Page]

My great-grandmother was a lady named Carrie Brosius (from western
PA). Does anyone know what nationality this surname is?

Thanks.

[Ilse Flick]

I think you mean origin.
Brosius is short for the first name "Ambrosius"
( Latin = divine ).
Saint Ambrosius was Bishop of Milan ( that's in Italy in case you don't know )
and was the teacher of St.Augustine.
The name somehow became a surname and developed into quite a few variations in Germany
such as "Brosius", "Bros", "Brösel", "Broseke", "Broseck".

Ilse Flick

[John Movius]

Mark...

You will find several listings for brosius on the FEEFHS Web Site -
including the fact tht it was also given name of a person who came from
Pomerania and a Henry Brosius born in Germany registered to vote in
California in 1972, plus a birth in 1879 in San Francisco.

You can find these listing by opening http://feefhs.org, clickon the
search engine index in the middle of the first screen and type "Brosius".

In addition to the good comments by the lady in the above message, you
should recognize that European Universities kept their records in Latin
in the early centuries. It was not uncommon for someone matriculating at
a University (medicime, law or religion) to accept the latinized version
of their name. If so your surname may well have been Bros before if
became Brosius. An article on Universitaet registers is on the FEEFHS
Web Site in the FEEFHS Internet Journal.

The possiblity the name came from an Italian Saints name cannot be
discounted either.

And there are circumstances where a Roman surname survived the dark and
middle ages. So it is possible for you to delve into the section on
Roman inscriptions in a good research library if you care to see if you
can find any of your surname between - say 3rd century B.C. and 3rd
century A.D.

IMHO, all three of these possibilities need to be searched if you are
serious about the first evidence of the existence of your Brosius
surname.

You should start by getting to a good University research library and
look up your surname in a Nammenlexikon (name lexicon) - a good one will
have a 4 to 6 of these by different authors - Hans Balhow (sp?) among
others. They list the author's opinion as to the first place such a
surname is found. You also will usually find the Bahlow book in the
German "core" collection at your nearest LDS Family History Center.

Good Luck

John Movius of FEEFHS

[Paul Glass]

Hi,
Brosius is German.

Bye,

Paul

[timbe...@gmail.com]

My great grandmother was Mary Brosius. Also from western PA! I bet they were related.

[coreybr...@gmail.com]

Actually it is an Ancient Greek name which basically translates to Immortal.

[coreybr...@gmail.com]

My last name is Broshious and it’s not German in origin. Yes there are some variations of our name in Germany but also in Greece, Italy, England, France and America. It’s Ancient Greek in origin meaning Immortal.

[Chr. Maercker]

coreybr...@gmail.com wrote:
> My last name is Broshious and it’s not German in origin. Yes there are some variations of our name in Germany but also in Greece, Italy, England, France and America. It’s Ancient Greek in origin meaning Immortal.

Really Ancient Greek, not Latin? Brosius sounds typically like a
latinized name i.e. Acricola = Bauer (German) = Farmer(?, English).
There are many such latin names in Germany like Musculus, Portius or
Gropius etc.

--



CU Chr. Maercker.