When were surnames first used?
DJS5060
When were surnames first used among German speaking peoples? Is it possible to
determine what provence or region a family originated in by their surname? Is
it possible to determine what religion a family might have been by their
surname? I realize that it may be impossible to determine this today, but what
about 100, 200 or more years ago? Were families very mobile then? Or did they
tend to stay in the region of their birth? Thanks.
Dan Stutz
djs...@aol.com
Clackamas, OR
Gary N. Deckant
Surnames have been in use for many centuries in most of the German-
speaking world, since roughly the 13th century. There have historically
been different methods of passing surnames down, different from today,
such as patronymic surnames, where the surname changed every generation,
or environments where it was common to use the property name in place
of the surname, so if the family moved to a different property, the
surname also changed. These methods of handing down surnames however
tended to be local phenomena, confined to certain areas and periods.
Sometimes it is possible to surmise what region a surname came from
by distinctive endings, such as -inger, -ow, -le, but this can
more often than not, lead to wild speculation of a name's origin.
As for religion, you would be safer to guess this based on where
the family lived rather than on their name. When surnames were
first used among the Christian population of Germany, the
Reformation had not yet occurred, so there was no such thing
as various denominations. Surnames among Germany's Jewish
population is a whole different story, and almost everything
I have said so far does not apply to them.
Finally to your question on mobility--by and large people stayed
close to the area they were born in (that's even true today),
but, yes, some people did relocate far from their native place.
In other words, it wasn't the norm, but not unheard of either.
For the most part, the study of surnames lends itself to
a great deal of speculation. In general too, surnames have
been in use among the common people since long before the
commencement of most genealogically practical records.
All of my comments are based on observations I have made
after many years of doing genealogy, and you may get another
spin on your question if anyone else responds.
--
Gary N. Deckant
bs...@yfn.ysu.edu
Youngstown, Ohio
MonikaYost
In about the mid thirteenth century, people were called not just by their first
name, but due to the fact that the same names kept re-occurring, they applied
another name to them in order to specify who they were talking about, such as
occupation, or the location they were from originally, or a description etc.
Often they were called by their ownings too, such as the Lord of the Regensburg
would later carry that name as a "surname" At first it would be i.e. Bruno of
the house of Querfurth v. Seebergen, meaning that the person was from that
particular ownership, landholdings or what have you called the Querfurth, and
since there must have been another Querfurth, it was further specified with von
Seebergen. Later the name Querfurth carried on as a legal surname. However,
surnames got changed sometimes within the family. For instance around 1300 in
my background one of the Querfurth-Seebergen did a noble deed and was knighted
for it, and called "der bidere man" which was then carried as a "surname" of
"biderman" by just that one son. All the others still carried the original
name. Some of his sons carried the original name, while only one held on to
the "biderman", later it changed to BIEDERMANN. So even though surnames of a
sort were used in 1200, changes did occur. Sometimes the reason may even be,
that the wife had more standing or nobilityor inherited much more land than her
husband. His name would then change to HER landholdings or HER surname. Hope
this helps. Monika
Helmut H. AGENA, HH
In this country many older families had clan names very early around 1000
and earlier , but the mayority used first and middle names only.
Zo have a family name was required by the modern bureuceacy and it depends
how much pressure the regime put aster it. Those having larger properties
often had family names allready at the end of the Middle Age (1486). The
administration managed about +/- 1800 to get people to use a family name.
It was finished in most parts after about 1820-
--
Helmut H. Agena
Hamburg
HAgen...@aol.com
Projekt: Genealogie der Agena aus Ostfrieslan in D, NL. USA etc.
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