(I may in over my head on this note but please bear with me or save me.) How does one tell if a name is German? First, there is little hope of telling the country of origin of many names here in the U.S. " Thomas " could have originated in almost every language group. Another one which could have many origins is " Garrett ". I am talking about a family name spelled in its native German by a German. What are some of the characteristics?
A high percentage of German family names begin with the letters B , H , K , M , S , and W . By the same measure, many letters are under represented: C , Q , X , and Y , for example. Letter combinations that are favored by the Germans include Sch , Be , Ha , He , Ma , and St . A case in point is the name Schmucker in Germany, which became Smucker here. The letter combination Wh , Ch , and Sh are very rare in German family names. Some names probably have a foreign origin, such as Christian or Christopher .
We have all seen some of the popular vowel combinations, such as the forms ae , oe , and ue , which are popular. They are so popular that the umlaut was developed to describe these cases, hence ä , ö , and ü . Typically, these umlauts are simply lost in America. For example, a noted Lutheran family in Pennsylvania was Mühlenberg in German. At first, it was Muehlenberg in America, but before long it was simplified to Muhlenberg .
The vowel combination ei is a source of difficulty for English speakers, who often convert it to ie or to y . Thus, Schneider become Snyder . Sometimes, the German name is simply mispronounced, as in Neiman , which should be pronounced as Nyman .
Germans speakers love to combine words, either multiple nouns, or adjectives with nouns. We have Oberfischbach which is a combination of three simple words, upper , fish , and brook . Dashes are never used when combining words. Family names in this form include Zimmerman , Steinmetz , Altgeld , and Hammerstein .
The suffix in a name often is a clue to the Germanness of the name. Some very popular ones are -dorf , -heim , -man ( n ), and -stein , which are dead giveaways. Others include, -bach , -bauer , -berg or -berger , -breit , -feld , -haus , and -müller . These could easy go into Bright , Miller , or Stone , to show three examples.
To carry a name from English back to German may be impossible because of the multiple nationalities. But when there are reasons to suspect that a name may have had German origins, it takes a good knowledge of German to be convincing. Recently, we had an example when I asked about Kines and Elke Hall suggested Kainz . But she had the advantage of knowing German, plus a phone book of some possibilities.
To get a flavor of German names, take the place name atlas for Germany and scan through it. Some letter combinations seem to go on for pages.
(22 Jul 00)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.