German: Naming Practices

Optional Print Course Material: German: Naming Practices

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There are a number of common misconceptions about “German naming patterns” including that they follow a prescribed formula in the majority of, or all, families. This may be true regionally (e.g., in a particular region of Germany and, in some cases, carried over into the country where the family emigrated to, if that happened), but there is no hard and fast rule and to expect that is potentially damaging to research. 

This course will examine the various types of naming patterns, name variations (for surnames and given names), regional influence on names, occupational influence on names, period influence on names (e.g., names changed from German to French during the Napoleonic years), the influence of the Church on baptismal names, the phenomenon of the “Naming Day” and its effect on the name used in a person’s adult life, and the commonality of reversing first and middle names during a person’s life. Spelling issues on documents, the use of signatures and occupations to separate people with the same name in a given community, and the phenomenon of Anglicizing names when people migrated will all be taken into account.