Whimsical surnames, part 2 (again mostly German)
« previous post | next post »
[This is a guest post by Michael Witzel]
A few months ago you published a discussion of whimsical surnames. Since then I have paid attention and have found new ones in almost every news broadcast.
It is said that there are 1 million (!) surnames in the German speaking area of some 95 million people (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Alsace, Luxemburg, Eupen in Belgium and some 1 million remaining in Poland). I leave aside the many millions of German immigrants in America etc., such as the notorious politician Witzel in Rio de Janeiro. Also, many Jewish names are the same as “regular German” names (;like Schuster =Shoemaker, head of the German Jewish Central Committee).
What I found is that almost all (hair) colors, animals, etc. are used, just as are designations of occupations, etc.. etc.
Beyond that, there are many funny names. Here is a small selection:
Schweinsteiger “pig incline” (a soccer player)
Mestmacher “dung maker”
Sauerbier “sour beer"
Fuellkrug “fill the mug!”
Streckfuss “stretch the foot”
Stopfkuchen “ push down the cake — in your throat" (my teacher)
Breitbart “broad beard” (US political site)
Halbfass “half vat” (our late Philly colleague)
Mundlos “without mouth (a terrorist)
Bauernfeind “enemy of peasants"
Von Hodenberg “testicle mountain"
Freyer “pursuing (women)"
Liebling “dear/lover"
Bräutigam “groom"
Van Skyhawk, from Dutch: van Schijk! (a late colleague).
via Latin: Blei “lead” from Latin Plumbum “lead” from LPrumboom “plum tree”!!
AND NOTE YOUR OWN NAME:
Maier-/Meier/Mayer/Mayr/Mair < Maior domus, "the administrator of a royal domain"
Note also typical Jewish names:
Abzug “vent/ chimney” (Like in Bella A.)
Ladestock “loading stick (for muskets)"
Zündnagel “ignition nail (in muskets)"
Mundstein (mouth/teeth stain” (my Austrian friend)
Baumfleck “spot on a tree” (a recent Israeli tech specialist at Harvard)
Berlinerblau “Berlin = Prussian blue (as in uniforms)
See: Max Gottschald, Deutsche Namenkunde.
Gottschald's book is the standard German work on onomastics. It explains every German surname and its parts, and cross-referencing relates one name to many others.
And the older Deutsches Namenbuch.
ENJOY!
Selected readings
- "Whimsical surnames" (3/16/24)
- "Troublesome Chinese surname" (10/1/22)
- "Concoction and elaboration" (3/5/24)
- "How to pronounce the surname 'Mair' and other Doggie talk" (2/17/22)
Philip Taylor said,
November 8, 2024 @ 3:14 am
My knowledge of German (such as it is) was gained solely through osmosis, with no formal tuition whatsoever, but I would nonetheless (and very respectfully) query one of the translations. Where the author has "Schweinsteiger" = "pig incline", it is not clear to me how he derives the second element. If we treat "Steiger" as a noun, then would not the most felicitous translation be "Foreman" ? If the surname were "Schweinsteigung" then I would see no problem, but with "Schweinsteiger" I am confused …
Markonsea said,
November 8, 2024 @ 5:31 am
Schweinsteiger: the 2nd element has nothing at all to do with climbing (or mounting, an alternative translation that occurred to me).
A Schweinsteig is simply a pigsty, the 2nd element being from an earlier stig, which is cognate (who'da thunk?) with English "sty" and not related in any way to the verb steigen.
There are a number of towns in Germany named Schweinsteig, suggesting pig farming was important to the locality (meat being more of a luxury in the past than today). So a Schweinsteiger could simply be someone from one of these places. OR: he could be the person responsible for the sty, which would be by no means a humble appointment.
de.wiki suggests the Schweinsteiger may be so named bcause he actually slept under the same roof as the swine. I take leave to approach this idea with some dubiety.
Yves Rehbein said,
November 8, 2024 @ 5:34 am
> many Jewish names are the same as “regular German” names (;like Schuster =Shoemaker, head of the German Jewish Central Committee).
Gottschalk may be a calque of Elyakim "god is the founder" for example http://www.namenforschung.net/id/name/445/1
> Bauernfeind “enemy of peasants"
I remember when "Joseph Judenfeind" appeared in a list of funny names I thought that it is almost certainly made up.
> If we treat "Steiger" as a noun …
@ Philip Taylor, I believe you are correct about Steiger as "foreman" at least in mining, though it seems "Schweinsteig" is a placename http://www.namenforschung.net/id/name/69269/1
J.W. Brewer said,
November 8, 2024 @ 9:13 am
Re the "It is said that there are 1 million …": without getting into [citation needed] issues, I wonder how much of this is the result of separately counting variant spellings of what are pretty transparently the "same" surnames. My very impressionistic and unrigorous sense is that there's quite a lot of that in German-speaking areas probably because many of the surnames had emerged long before German orthography was standardized or at least standardized across regions to override dialect variation, and people may be uniquely possessive or conservative about surnames in a way that discourages silently emending them to reflect the now-standard spelling of the morpheme(s) they derive from.
David Marjanović said,
November 8, 2024 @ 9:50 am
Yeah, someone who mounts pigs would be a Schweinbesteiger. That said, the name is still funny to tens of millions because Schweinsteig is a regional word that is not known elsewhere…
Loosely perhaps. The literal meaning is "God-servant" – like Abdallah or Theodoulos. Here, too, however, the original meaning of Schalk is long forgotten, and the word is now widely taken to mean "jester" or even "jokey mood".
Bauernfeind and Gegenbaur ("anti-farmer") are comparatively common names; the latter mostly with pre-orthographic -r instead of -er.
Robert Coren said,
November 8, 2024 @ 9:54 am
The Germans aren't the only ones; I have encountered the Italian surname Malatesta ("headache") on several occasions.
Vance Koven said,
November 8, 2024 @ 10:52 am
A long-ago law partner of mine used to come up with these. He hypothesized a Latin American film star with the name Dolores Fuertes de la Barriga.
Rodger C said,
November 8, 2024 @ 11:07 am
Vance, I heard that joke from a Cuban instructor at DLI in 1969.
michael witzel said,
November 9, 2024 @ 5:50 am
Many thanks for the comments, many well taken. — I had wondered about: von Hodenberg, and checked: indeed hode is an old Low German designation of a hut or shield. This ancient noble family is attested since the 12th century — As for some Jewish names (Ladestock etc.) I forgot to mention that these names were imposed by Austrian officials in Galicia (S. Poland) for families who did not pay them enough to get nice names such as ending in -berg, -thal, or beginning with gold-, silber-, rosen-, etc. etc. —-
Typo: it should be: Von Skyhawk from Dutch van Schijk [sxaik/sxɛik] that appears with multiple spellings in the US.—
I especially like the Latinized Low German name Prumboom "plum tree" –> Latin Plumbum "lead", then "retranslated" –> German Blei "lead"…
Kate Bunting said,
November 9, 2024 @ 5:53 am
'Loading stick' = ramrod. (A tall, thin person? – or maybe a sexual allusion?)
'Ignition nail' – possibly the hammer of a percussion musket?
Victor Mair said,
November 9, 2024 @ 1:16 pm
From June Teufel:
I had a student named Pamela Scheisse. A close friend of my grandmother’s was Mrs. Fastnacht. And for that matter, what about Teufel?
Phillip Helbig said,
November 9, 2024 @ 1:39 pm
Some people I’ve known:
Siebzehnrübel (seventeen rubles)
Hasstdenteufel (hates the devil)
Neunteufel (nine devils)
Kannengießer (pot-pourer)
Lautenschläger (lutenist)
Yves Rehbein said,
November 9, 2024 @ 2:49 pm
> I had a student named Pamela Scheisse
If you don't mind my asking, why would she have her named like that?
> A close friend of my grandmother’s was Mrs. Fastnacht
most likely hydronymic ach/au "water", e.g. Aachen "Aix la chapelle"
> And for that matter, what about Teufel?
I don't know about that but I have heared Mannteufel. DFD excludes French Mandeville (Département Eure, Normandie, France), though I were you I would take it. http://www.namenforschung.net/id/name/13092/1 see also here Schützendübel, presumably marksman-devil – Dübel "dowel" is slang for Jolle "small sail boat", which is slang for jibbit "ribbit", in its turn code for Tüte "bag", synonym to Horn "horn" (of plenty), modernly Flinte "boomstick" or Lunte "snub", older Flintrohr, Rohr "tube, pipe" itself synonym to Bong, Öke, Pfeife, Ofen "bong, hooka, pipe, oven" (potentially due to a producer labeled Roor), either way deverbal piefen "to pipe", viz. smoke, which leaves Dübel going back to PIE *dū(H)- "smoke" or I won't be called zẖꜣww "writers", prehistoric to Old Kingdom Egyptian /zaçˈʀaːwaw/, cp. Rabbi, Rabbiner, Hb. ráv "great", Akk. rabûm "big", Eg. ꜣbw /ˈʀaːbaw/ "elephant". Nobody calls me Zach yet, hence it is a small onus to give, not a geneologer myself.
On second thought, Skandinavian fjell, German Fels "mountain" is strongly indicated by manteu*
Which brings me to monkey-key, clef d'anglaise, as a Monteur myself.
Victor Mair said,
November 9, 2024 @ 3:46 pm
Bienstock
German: metonymic occupational name for a beekeeper from Middle High German binstoc 'beehive'. Jewish (Ashkenazic): artificial name or a metonymic occupational name for a beekeeper from Yiddish binshtok 'beehive'. (from Ancestry)
Milan said,
November 9, 2024 @ 4:07 pm
I used to know an old woman who, upon marriage, had taken the name "Fick". "Fick" is a common German verb, which means exactly the same as its English cognate, from which differs only in the vowel. Once she told me that every time she was pregnant, she prayed for a daughter. I asked her: "Oh, so you really wanted to raise a girl? Did you get one in the end?". She responded: "Thanks be to God, I had six girls and no sons. I just wanted the Fick-ery to end…"
Milan said,
November 9, 2024 @ 4:18 pm
Re: Steiger. "Steiger" specifically refers to a foreman in mining. It literally means "climber, ascender". It refers to the foreman regularly going up and down the mine shaft to consult management. Steiger had a special role in German mines. While they were paid by the mining companies, they were not appointed them. Rather, they were appointed by the local mining office, a branch of government. At least since the end of WW2, these mining offices were squarely in the hands of the Social Democrats. The foremost duty of a Steiger is the safety of the miners, not the profit of the minining operation.
Besides Mme Fick, I also know a family "Bierschwall" 'beer surge'
Cuconnacht said,
November 9, 2024 @ 6:55 pm
Markonsea says that a Schweinsteiger may be "the person responsible for the sty, which would be by no means a humble appointment."
I will point out that the eponymous ancestor of the Stuarts, who became kings of Scotland and later England, may have been a sty-ward (although equally possibly, the stig/sty that constitutes the first element of their name may been a human household, not a pigsty).
Rodger C said,
November 10, 2024 @ 1:02 pm
(although equally possibly, the stig/sty that constitutes the first element of their name may been a human household, not a pigsty).
And so we come to the venerable parody Bored of the Rings, in which the Boggies live in a land called the Sty. (There are many such reflections of the fact that the authors were of Irish heritage.)