Family names in Germany were influenced by outside factors or civilizations. In eastern Germany, a Slavic influence is shown by the endings of -ski , -ow , -ek , -ke ( n ), and -vic . The writer, H. L. Mencken obtained his name through such a source.
Unattached prefixes are clues. Along the lower Rhine, and in the Netherlands, prepositions meaning "of" or "from" are common. The Op den Graaf family originated in Germany near Krefeld along the lower Rhine. In other areas of Germany, " Von " for ordinary citizens and " von " for nobility denote " from " or " of ". Wernher Magnus Maximilian von Braun needed a big rocket to launch his name. Occasionally Germans were honored with, or assumed, the French honorary labels of de , de la , and du before the family name. Christoph von Graffenried was a German-speaking Swiss but he adopted the French form, Christopher de Graffenried . Another noble German family was von Wrede .
In given names, several appear much more frequently in German lands than elsewhere. Examples are August ( us ), Conrad , Friederich , Gustav ( e ), Johann ( es ), Maximilian , Otto , Ruprecht , and Wilhelm . A combination of one of these Germanic given names and a family name as described earlier is a strong tip off that we have a German. With their German spelling, the feminine names could be Anna , Elisabeth ( a ), Katharina , and Ursula .
Several German names were Latinized, or converted from their pure German form. We have the Crecelius and Gudelius families in Germanna history.
A survey of the twenty-five most common family names in (West) Germany in 1970 gives in this order: Mueller/Müller , Schmitt , Schneider , Fischer , Meyer , Weber , Becker , Wagner , Schaefer/Schäffer , Schultz , Hoffman , Bauer , Meier , Klein , Schroeder/Schröder , Schmitz , Schwarz , Wolf , Neumann , Schmid , Braun , Zimmerman , Hofmann , and Koch . About nine of these are in the Germanna community.
I have been using Charles R. Haller’s " Distinguished German-Americans ", a paperback published in 1995 by Heritage Books. The author has selected about 2,400 immigrants to America from German-speaking lands for further study. The selection process has some uncertainties but he feels it is about 98% accurate. Basic biographical data was obtained from published works such as " Dictionary of American Biography " and " Who Was Who in America ".
Of the people included in the selection, 49% were first generation, 18% were second generation, and 16% were third or higher generation. A balance of 17% was not characterized by generation. In some of the professions of these people, the most significant contributions were made by the first generation people. For example, in music the major contributions are made by first generation people, and the second (and third) generation people fall off sharply. Probably this indicates better musical education and preparation in Germany than in America. They came to America
after
receiving their training.
(25 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.