German family names: Where do they come from?

[@VonSteiner1]

My surname is Deutsch. My ancestors were real creative.

[@Ulkomaalainen]

... but very efficient, I take?

[@HesseJamez]

So everyone knows where you come from - at least in Germany.

[@HesseJamez]

JMCMaster596 Master Indeed - they speak German in Austria and sth. that sounds a bit like German in Switzerland.

[@felipesteinck6984]

My surname is Steinck, what possibility to have germanic ancestry do i have?

[@benjaminfacouchere2395]

@@felipesteinck6984 Two possibilities I found: Steinke .. (stone + diminutive) and having the sense of stone-cutter. Other could be i.e. Steimke - a place name that was also called Steineke/Steinbeke (which also contain stone as the first part) Sources: www.houseofnames.com/steinke-family-crest www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=steinke de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steimke_(Kl%C3%B6tze)

[@jaikee9477]

In a parallel universe world famous English composer Richard Cartwright wrote the Ring Cycles which later inspired German writer Tollkühn to write der Herr der Ringe.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Actually, in the german translation alot of the names are translated.

[@Hessi]

Don't forget the famous Songwriter Erich Klappstuhl or the well-known actor Thomas Kreuzer (Unmmögliche Mission Teil 1 bis 16). What's about Jakob Tiberius Kirch from the Starship VSS Unternehmung?

[@NicolaW72]

Exactly so must it happened. :-)

[@bleiglanz]

😂

[@tillposer]

Errr... Tolkien is of German Origin and, indeed, was Tollkühn originally.

[@minski76]

Schweinsteiger.... Nickname or job description? ;)

[@vsmash2]

neither, -steig is an old word for trail or dirt track, so "the one who lives by the dirt track that pigs use".

[@yogevbocher3603]

Steige is a shanty for small cattle, in this case swine. Schwein.steiger therefore means swine shanty owner.

[@Coronaria32]

minski76 Made my Day 😂😂

[@BertGrink]

I didn't know that Schweinsteiger was a name, but since it appears so, is it possible that the name Schweiger is somehow a shortened form of that name, or am i completely wrong here?

[@HesseJamez]

No, Schweiger is derived from the verb "schweigen" = The silent one

[@semurobo]

My surname is Bischof, and I always wonder how it could be passed on in the bloodline, since bishops are forbidden to have children 😅

[@NicolaW72]

Pope Alexander VI. was well known as the horniest womanizer in his time and fathered ten childs. The Borgia family exists until today and for no other reason. So...

[@igorsmihailovs52]

Protestant bishops can be married, I guess? Also, widowers can be ordained bishops as well...

[@catman64k]

i think this might have to do with theatre, that an ancestor of you played always the bishop in a theatre. Same counts for surnames that includes political titles, like König (King), Kaiser (Keyser), Graf (Earl), Papst (Pope) etc. It might also some of the traveling folks, that spread news through theatre.

[@Ul.B]

Protestant priests and also bishops have always been allowed to marry. With Catholic bishops it is not so simple, since celibacy was not originally seen as it is seen today. Some were celibate only on Sundays, others related celibacy to various circumstances, and many Catholic priests and bishops even had children. This was only interpreted more strictly in later centuries.

[@schusterlehrling]

No, that was actually not a tradition. priests could merry and were even asked to before ca. 1000 AD.

[@Mladjasmilic]

In Bosnia, after takin over by Austrians, they forced people to register family names. Most of Muslim landlords had them, but Christian peasants did not. They wanted to make fun of Germans, so they told them made up last names: Zec (rabbit), Zvijer (beast), Golo (naked), Golub (pidgeon), Grebo (scratch), Palikuća (house-burner), Pištalo (squcker), Rikalo (roar-er), Toljaga (wooden bat, but bigger), Vreća (bag), Prdavac (fart-er), Guzina (big-ass). Anegdote - only in Hercegovina it is possible for president of town to be Lažetić (liar), his vicepresidents to be Mutilović (somebody who is doing questionable things) and Dangubić (time waster/ bad worker), police officer to be Batinić (beater), crowd controler Remetić (trouble-maker), paperwork to to Slijepčević (blind man) and accountant to be Manjak (defficite).

[@BertGrink]

Mladen Milić that is hilarious! LMAO :D

[@walterross9057]

Nethertheless the bureaucrats got what they wanted. Everone got a name.

[@freakingperson4409]

Awesome thank you 😊

[@ericcarlson3746]

This was done with Jews, who traditionally didn't use the concept of last names (from what i've read) until the varous modern nations required everyone to have them. If lucky you picked your own last name, in cases like the one Mladen discussed it could be something insulting like Goldwasser (urine)

[@blackforest_fairy]

@@ericcarlson3746 goldwasser is neither insulting nor does it mean urine. goldwasser means goldwater in german and means the water the gold nuggets were washed with. and might refer to a person who washed gold as a job. of course some people might say they should have been called goldwäscher (goldwashers) instead but that could have been seen as a hint to that person engeaging in a dishonest business ( money laundering) So goldwasser was probably the better choice.

[@eltfell]

On Iceland they don't have surnames even today. Instead they use the father's name by adding "-son" (for males) or "-dottír" (for females) to the name of the father. That makes the Icelandic phone book (there is only one) look interesting.

[@ElchiKing]

is it true that the islandic phone book is ordered by first name?

[@eltfell]

Yes, this is true.

[@HesseJamez]

Other Scandinavians once used the same system, hence Danes have 7-8 different surnames only. Petersen, Jensen, Hansen, Olsen, Nielsen + Larsen might be 80% of the population.

[@goawaygoawaynow]

Fun fact: In the name of equality, it is now up to the parents to decide whether the -son or -dottír should be affixed to the father's or mother's name.

[@tibethatguy]

@@goawaygoawaynow -bur can also be used by people who are not legally male or female nowadays.

[@alvincash3230]

My surname is Mittelstadter. During my 64 year lifetime in Ohio USA, I have gotten used to it blowing people's minds when they encounter it. When inevitably I'm asked to spell it, I almost always preface it by saying, "It's a long one." before I start. And know I will have to repeat it 3 or 4 times before they get it right. Obviously, my ancestors came from the town of Mittelstadt, Germany near Stuttgart.

[@deutschermichel5807]

Sure your name isnʼt Mittelstädter, though?

[@elton1981]

Just found out my German surname is Rademacher. Lovely.

[@erikrosdorff606]

I know a guy who's last name is "König" apparently you earn this title if you won some sporting event in the 1700s or so

[@Rasgonras]

Schützenkönig for example. A *Shooter's king' if you will. I know plenty of guys who were named this in order for their shooting skills.

[@Rick2010100]

König originates from the dialect form of Konrad as Konrad is high German.

[@blackforest_fairy]

@@Rick2010100 könig means king... as far as i know king as a last name is a thing in the english speaking world as well...

[@NicolaW72]

@@blackforest_fairy Indeed.

[@halwag]

?? "whose', konig means king., 'earned'.

[@gabrieldettmannb4509]

Grandmas got an interesting surname 'Tanzgeschirr'. Which according to her, translates to 'dancing dishes' 😄

[@ClaudiaG.1979]

She is right.. Tanz = dance Geschirr= dishes/tableware

[@gabrieldettmannb4509]

@@ClaudiaG.1979 Is that your surname? It would be interesting to know, because supposedly it only occurs 7 times globally....

[@ClaudiaG.1979]

@@gabrieldettmannb4509 no but i am german ;-)

[@ClaudiaG.1979]

Ohh a Geschirr can also be a horses harnish.. so maybe your name came from someone who had horses and liked to dance ? Or he was a good horseman and the harnish just danced/bounced when he rode his horse ? My surname is "grün".. green in english.. my ancestors are danubeswabians. they were forced to move into the former jugoslavia area, they changed the surname into the jugoslavian word "zelenak" wich also means green in english.. during wk2 they had to flee and came back to germany and they changed their name back into grün again. some of them emigratet into canada and are now living in the states..

[@B.Ies_T.Nduhey]

​@@ClaudiaG.1979I've read somewhere that Grün refers to witchcraft, too

[@kilésengati]

It only gets interesting when almost nobody has ever heard of your family name, everyone misspells it on a regular basis and if they know about your family name, it's probably because they know some sort of relative of yours.

[@MellonVegan]

Story of my life. Always interesting when someone thinks I'm Turkish bc Ommer looks like Omer or Ömer. Although it is apparently common enough that I was once stopped at the airport to wait for clearance, so to speak, bc someone of my name wasn't allowed to leave the country ^^

[@grafarco3717]

My surname is Sperling. So everyone in Germany assumes it derives from the little bird "sparrow". But it actually is a viking surname and means "spearman" and our family traces all the way back to the Normans in France and Sicily, where there actually is a village that once belonged to my family. Sperlinga.

[@Rasgonras]

My familiy's name has a very interesting history. Date's back to a protestant french family persecuted for their faith.

[@philipphermann9454]

"Du bist ein Zauberer, Harald!"

[@halwag]

Wizard? Danke.

[@nuvaboy]

... Harald Töpfer... 🤣🤣

[@MichaEl-rh1kv]

As an amendment: Some family names were originally house names. In medieval times streets did not often get names, and there were no house numbers - so the (better) houses got names themselves, like Zum Esel (with/at the donkey) or Zum Adler (with/at the eagle). In Basel e.g. you can see this still. But Adler could also mean the Imperial Eagle, and the family name 'Adler' was often adopted by Jewish People or by Sinti, sometimes thereby referring to imperial charters of protection ( in the case of the Sinti cancelled as early as 1498), sometimes merely in the hope of protection by this symbol.

[@eisikater1584]

I know a Bavarian village where there are basically three family names: Bauer (farmer), Jungbauer (the young farmer), and Mühlbauer (the farmer who runs a mill, obviously for grinding wheat). And don't forget the many variations of Breu or Brey. Brewers were most important in the middle ages. May I also suggest that while you have some Wagneresque music as a background, the second you translate it to Cartwright to edit in the Bonanza tv series intro? Because one of my friends is called Wagner, and I have the Bonanza theme as his personal ringtone on my phone.

[@rewboss]

One word: copyright. Also, that music is way too upbeat for that specific moment.

[@eisikater1584]

Sure. I sometimes tend to forget that one word. But hasn't it been the rule in Germany that up to four beats (how do you say "Takte" in English?) it is considered "fair use"? But I agree with you that it would have been too upbeat, you're absolutely right there.

[@rewboss]

No, that's a myth; and in any case, German copyright law has no concept of "fair use" (it has "limits to copyright", and entirely different thing). Deutsche Bahn was once caught out by this myth: in Berlin and Brandenburg, their local trains had jingles for the on-board announcements. It didn't take long for GEMA to put a stop to that fun and demand royalties, explaining that royalties are due the moment a melody is recognizable (which could be after just four or five notes). That's moot, though, because KZbin is under Californian jurisdiction. US copyright law does have a concept of fair use, but again, the belief that everything under a certain amount is fair use is also a myth.

[@eisikater1584]

Thanks, Andrew, for enlightening me. I think I'll mute my phone in public in the future to avoid that GEMA charges me for public performance of copyrighted music.

[@KiraFriede]

The funniest name I have read so far was "Muckenhirn" (brain of a mosquito). I really would like to find out how that came up ... Most of these last names weren't given to the families by themselves, but were already used by neighbors to talk about two people with the same first name. You could also have told that the jews chose their last names themselves and therefore often have very poetic names (often containing names of flowers and words like 'gold', 'silver' 'stone').

[@kvwuppkvwupp834]

Well I know somebody with the name "Muckenschnabl".

[@NicolaW72]

A former judge of the German Constitutional Court carries the family name "Schluckebier" = "Drinking beer" (no joke!). So what...

[@PolarbearKA]

A name that I saw because of my job: Märzluft (March air)

[@khadijakadrihassani6691]

Are they by any chance Bosnian

[@robertwilloughby8050]

There are Beckers' that used to be water baliffs, too.

[@ronin667]

Some names are also mangled forms of foreign names. For example, my paternal grandmother's ancestors were originally from France and were called "Noir" (=black). After they migrated to Germany this somehow turned into "Nau" over time. Also, there's a small but considerable number of people, mainly around Heidelberg, carrying the name "Ronellenfitsch", which was traced back to a family of Croatian immigrants called Hranilović.

[@deutschermichel5807]

I love such names. Ronellenfitsch is genious.

[@Matahalii]

Prince Philipp Mountbatten is directly Translation from Battenberg, which was choosen because german names were uncool these days..

[@HesseJamez]

Yep - they were at war with Germany, hence it was useful to change his name before marrying an English Queen. By word he was a "Battenmountain"

[@honkforpeace007]

Steinway (Steinweg) the same at a different decade. That´s kinda uncompleted, cos" stein" wasn´t transformed to "stone"...

[@DoubleACbg]

There is a family in southwestern Pennsylvania named Beinhauer that operates funeral homes, and I once met a man from the Frankfurt area that saw this when visiting and laughed… he said that the name translated was “bone crusher”.

[@pelegsap]

Interestly enough many Jewish people have German or German-sounding last names, either through German heritage (my paternal grandmother's family, for example, is called "Blumental" - Valley of Flowers), or more common via Yiddish, which is not too far from German (but there are some differences like "Baum", tree, becoming "Boim", and so forth).

[@HesseJamez]

Yiddish is a German dialect. Hence the names sound alike.

[@blackforest_fairy]

yiddish is kind of a german dialect... the original language of jews is hebbrew... the jews who came to europe in the early middle ages developed their own germanic language. also many jews lived in Germany or german speaking countries and have german names because thats were they lived then family names became a thing.

[@davidsch9122]

I once met a really beautiful girl which had the surname Schön (beautiful). I really liked that coincident:-P

[@ThePixel1983]

I had a colleague named Roth (red) who called a friend without knowing her family name. She answered the phone with her family name ("Grün") (green). Such confusion.

[@lonestarr1490]

@@ThePixel1983 A part of my family has the surname Schneckenhaus. The old Schneckenhaus (something like the great uncle of my mother, if I'm not mistaken) enjoyed telling a story about one phone call he had where the person answered with his name: Schweinefuß. When he then said that his name is Schneckenhaus, the other guy hang up because he suspected him of mocking.

[@ThePixel1983]

@@lonestarr1490 lol 😂

[@deutschermichel5807]

​@@lonestarr1490hahaha thatʼs funny

[@B.Ies_T.Nduhey]

​@@lonestarr1490I'd rather be the Schneckenhaus 😆

[@Fusselmops]

Harry is usually a variant of Henry, which translates to "Heinrich". Harry Potter would thus be "Heinz Töpfer".

[@billkelly8222]

In the German Wikipedia article, the name is left untranslated. How does it appear in the German bookstores? de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter

[@rewboss]

Yeah, probably "Heinz" would be closer. To be honest, I wasn't paying much attention to the first name. In real life, of course, names are usually left untranslated. So Harry Potter is still known as Harry Potter in Germany.

[@Shadow4707]

Actually Hermione is only Hermine in Germany. All the other names, as far as I know, are left alone however.

[@Seegalgalguntijak]

Isn't the English Harry the short form of Harold? Then it would be Harald in German - how do you get to Heinrich?

[@MysteryHendrik]

Shadow4707 Narcissa is Narzissa in German. And Professor Kettleburn becomes Professor Kesselbrand. There are still are few others which are translated or changed in the German version.

[@ulrikschackmeyer848]

DO NOT FORGET 'MEYER/ MAIER/MAIR': 'tennant farmer', as I read somewhere the third most common German name (after Braun and Schmidt). Ulrik Schack Meyer (a Dane)

[@ShenLong991]

Don't forget to mention all of the "Meier/Meyer/Maier/Mayer" and the "Hoffmann/Hofmann/Hoffman/Hofman" and so on... Which was mostly some sort of Landlords right-hand or some sort of.

[@HesseJamez]

Meier (Old German) is a guy working in a milkery. They made cheese, butter, cream an so on.

[@gerdforster883]

@@HesseJamez True, but in some regions (Ostwestfalen, for example), Meier was the "title" of the richest farmer of the village, tasked with some administrative function during feudalism.

[@abiyahabiyelbetsalel2869]

And Myers from Miers

[@patriciaschuster9111]

Schuster, which was shortened at Ellis Island, from his name Schustereider.

[@Ralphieboy]

Schröder/Schrader=fellows who did heavy lifting and moving (furniture, wine barrels, etc) Another one that threw me was "Moebius", which I found out is not Latin but a derivative of "Bartholomäus" (Bartholomew), which itself comes from Aramaic, "Bar Tholomai" (Son of Ptolemy)

[@andynixon2820]

Some belgian buddies told me that the same thing happened in the low countries where people had to register a surname , so out of protest many picked a really stupid name as a joke .

[@romar1581]

Or in case they were illiterate an signed with an X, the Name was registered as Ickx. I bet the registrar laughed the whole evening.

[@NicolaW72]

In the Low German speaking territories of Northern Germany exists some really strange family names, which sounds funny but are not for people who have to carry them. E.g. one not unusual family name in Northern Germany is "Ficken" = "Fucking". A former neighbor of me, Udo Ficken, changed his name years ago with official approval into Udo Finke.

[@MrAronymous]

@@romar1581 That's how Meryl Streep got her family name.

[@jonathanscott7372]

You missed out that there are regional difference. Where I live in Baden, many names end -le, for example Trondle, Schauble. In Switzerland many names end -li. In North Germany, names ending -sky are probably Prussian. Many families came from everywhere during the Industrial revolution around the Ruhe river, so the Ruhrpot names can be very variable.

[@sauerkraut2315]

Lots of -ski / sky names also have a Polish / Slavic origin; there was a lot of immigration to the Ruhrgebiet during the industrial revolution

[@adamzieba8364]

@@sauerkraut2315 Similarily there are many German-sounding names among my fellow Poles who in most cases had German ancestors many generations ago (for exmaple "Walddeutsche" who settled in the southeast around Krosno and Łańcut) and consider themselves Polish despite names like Wendtland, Schmöllerl etc. Some even use Umlauts in spelling to this day. Others use polonized versions.

[@squidgama]

My family name is Middendorf. I suppose it's either a village somewhere or my ancestors where living in the village center

[@NicolaW72]

Yes.

[@patsin6873]

Longbottom ... Langarsch ....

[@masatwwo6549]

Es gibt ja auch Niedergesäß

[@user-sh3xo1gj7q]

The most memorable (presumably German) surnames I've come across so far are "Rosentreter", "Sucker" and "Bitch" (pronounced like "Bittch").

[@Girvid]

Family names with von (van) are very common in the Netherlands.

[@polipogas]

van gohg, Van der Sar, van Nistelrooy and van bronckhorst just came to mind

[@polipogas]

Yup, I know, I'm learning deutsch and I find a lot of Dutch words very similar

[@stroke_of_luck]

H L Mencken writes that in Austria last names were assigned. Jewish people got insulting names like Einstein (one testicle) whereas rich folks could be very harmonious.

[@lillawuwudiwu9454]

My surname is Wischerhoff and there's actually a city called Wischerhöfen where my father grew up

[@BillyLeeGoodman]

Pretty sure my ancestors were good men... I mean we still are... most of us.

[@NicolaW72]

:-)

[@richardleonhard3971]

I would argue "Krüger" is the more common translation of "Potter". "Töpfer" is a relatively rare last name.

[@walterross9057]

No, Krüger comes from innkeeper in Low German.

[@dieallgemeinheit2247]

There is also the matter of local names (oder Ortsnamen) where there had to be found precise names for everyone in the village. For example my grandmother was called Metzger's cause her grandfather was one of the towns butchers and she was the only girl with her name out of a family of that sort. The same reasoning works for family names that are really locations. As long as not many people came from that region, the family would keep the name. While there was a written and official family name in the church books (especially the register for christening and death), these kinds of names are still in use in villages by the endemic community, or at least by the older folks born and raised there. The part about the description is head on and also falls in this category ;) My sources are basically my grandmother and her studies into her villages past. Keep up the good work o7

[@jokervienna6433]

Should be read with a German accent: -How do you get rid of German aristocrats? -Von by von.

[@ChrysanthsMum]

So, I guess my mom’s Steinbrenner would be stone burner? I thought they were just hearty drinkers! 😂

[@Ul.B]

@@ChrysanthsMum Stone meant limestone back then. The word "Stein" means stone in German, it has little or quite nothing to do with what Americans call a stein.

[@clemensrichter2449]

in Thailand wurde Familienname erst 1913 eingeführt. Außerdem konnte keine 2 Familie denselben Namen haben d.h. wenn ein Thais denselben Familiennamen sind die ziemlich sicher miteinander verwandt

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

In chine sinds auch auch knapp 20 namen die sich auf gut 80 der Bevölkerung verteilen.

[@HesseJamez]

Und in Korea genügen schon 2 Namen für 80% der Bevölkerung. Die heißen alle Kim oder Lee.

[@mylena3086]

Das ist ja n Kontrast zu den Vitenamesischen Nachnamen :D Sehr interessant

[@deutschermichel5807]

Hallo! Wie meinen Sie das? Gibt es viele Vietnamesische Nachnamen?

[@Azaghal1988]

My Brother and I have tried for years to find the definitive origin of our fathers family name, We arrived at two possibilities: Either it's derived from the Alp-Region Raetia or the german name of a Romanian village (in Siebenbürgen / Transsylvanian) that was settled during the rule of the teutonic order there. Not sure if we can get closer^^

[@blackforest_fairy]

which is your fathers family name?

[@mikeblatzheim2797]

Not particularly difficult for me, since my family name is identical to the name of an old village about 30km from me. So the origin is somewhat obvious

[@EnbyFranziskaNagel]

It seems your ancestors didn't move far from their hometown.

[@lonestarr1490]

Same for me. Except that in my case the village is more than 30km away, in a different country (Poland), and isn't called that way anymore.

[@lindaniedringhaus8790]

Love my German name by marriage. The only problem: I have to spell it all the time!

[@jakegarvin7634]

Seems like Richard Wagoner would be a better fit

[@jackelveyder]

Really must admit, I absolutely love this channel.

[@KaisaKylakoski]

I have had genealogy as a nobby for 22 years, so I disagree with the ending statement. Might depend on the country, but there are many where you can learn to do the research yourself. Competently and well.

[@ThomasRenneis]

My surname derieves from deRennes ,poverished french lower aristocracy....who somewhere around the time of the 30 years war sold their services as mercinaries and finaly ended up in service of the german House of Hesse-Darmstadt. During the time of the esprit de la revange and the german unification wars the name became to "french sounding"...so a simple "i" was added ande the prefix "de" was wiped. There are not more then about 80-100 People with that surname within Germany...about 70% of them originate in my hometown and they are all related to each other.

[@Marzek_]

Familiengeschichte ist schon ziemlich interessant. Mein Nachname kommt bspw aus dem polnischen und bedeutet übersetzt etwa 'kleines Fröstchen'. Meine Familie väterlicher Seits bestand im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert aus Ingenieuren und mütterlicherseits gehörte meine Familie zum russischen Adel. Da fühlt man sich schon ziemlich gut... ;)

[@ppd3bw]

Mark Twain (that's a stage name by the way) did not like Wagner's music as much. A Wagner opera reminded him of a visit at the dentist, and believe me, in those days that was even less fun than it is today...

[@B.Ies_T.Nduhey]

Aaand LOOOONGish 😆

[@andyball1317]

Rewboss I so enjoy your videos, I would love for you to talk about German Language development, like English I find fasinating, btw mine is Steiner

[@HalfEye79]

That is a really interesting topic. As far as I know, my namegiving ancestor was a roofer for "Reed"-Dächer or so. There were many variations, but is very near.

[@DaneeBound]

An Ancestry.com ad ran on this video Pretty fitting for once

[@arkentvb7168]

In Harry potter in german ist der Name ganz normal …

[@nurventilatoren]

I had to find out that my surname is from old-prussia and meant something among the lines of stick or cudgel... not a good find. But, tbf, I have other surnames in my family tree: Gericke, Stern or Pietsch (those are the ones I know of, anyway).

[@jonaswicker1541]

My surname is Wicker which means magician and war, when I did a dna test in December 2021 which I have been updating since forever i have a whole line of family from my paternal side from Baden wurttemburg, Rhineland Westphalia and Rhineland palatine

[@johngmulhatton9794]

My wife's father was Paul Wilhelm Robert Colditz. We are interested in finding out where the family originated from. We think it was East Germany. (Whether there is some connection with the Town "Colditz" is perhaps a lead)

[@Gerbert66]

real interestet as always, can you make the same with surenames?Pleace

[@tylernachtrab1871]

Could anyone here help me to deduct the origins of my family name “Nachtrab”? Ive read it could mean “night owl, night bird” but also “rearguard, night ride, trot behind”. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

[@gabrielemathieu5306]

Harry = Heinrich, Henry Heinrich Töpfer

[@TecrasTrash]

Surprise, my surname is just the name of a small town in the Sauerland region. Much German indeed.

[@hansmeiser32]

2:05 "Another option was to use the name of the place that you lived in..." That's probably why my last name is the city which doesn't exist.

[@brockm4047]

Awesome video, thanks!

[@Geitzeist]

My surname is Kanzler, which is kinda pretentious for a bunch of proletarians.

[@bryans5150]

Any idea what FEUERSTHALER would leave clues to,??

[@killianbaumann7125]

Closer traditionally in active above quarter honest justify Greek firmly sun

[@cerberaodollam]

John Cooper/Johannes Büttner makes a former leader of my country sound a lot less... ominous. 🤣

[@uncinarynin]

Have you ever researched where your family name came from, Andrew?

[@rewboss]

There are so many theories, it's not funny. Somebody once tried to convince me that I am a descendant of the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, on the strength that my surname resembles the name of a village associated with King Harold.

[@AllSeeingStarLP]

Surnamedb is mostly accurate, though they miss a lot of non english names. www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Bossom So your ancestry may be French...

[@franny5156]

My surname is schön... Wuhu I've won the lottery

[@ThamiorSilberdrache]

It took my many years to find out that my family name seems to be a transcription of the swabian word that translates to something like "wild, deserted" into standard German. Knowing that this family name is mostly in use in the south west of germany, this theory is not implausible. That leeds to to question: Why did my ancestors decide to use a word with a negative connotation as a family name? Was it a joke?

[@blackforest_fairy]

without knowing your familyname we can not help you with the history. joke names were not really a thing. I am from the south west of Germany but with your discribtion i have no idea which name you could possibly be talking about.

[@BertGrink]

+rewboss You said that the name Krämer is roughly equivalent to Chandler, but is that really right? I would have thought that Merchant, or Marchant, would be better. I'd like to hear you take on this, please. Grüsse aus Dänemark. :D

[@icantthinkofaname2722]

You are right, for me "Krämer" means "Merchant".

[@h2okopf415]

For me "Merchant" means "Kaufmann". Also a common familyname in Germany. "Kram" means a mixture of small items. So Reboss is right (for me).

[@crisschmitz2767]

So I've read a name here a funny one and it's true in Germany Funfuck not kidding..

[@J_P1]

Interesting of you to mention my German surname Conrad 😁

[@Sennahoj_DE_RLP]

My last name is a short form of name. The long form is my second name

[@phosphoros60]

And of course, if your family made torches, you'd adopt the name Torcher.

[@rothfuxx6629]

Harry can in German also mean Heinrich (Henry) or shortened Heinz.

[@gabrieldettmannb4509]

Funny, my grandfathers birth certificate listed his name as 'Heinrich', his immigration ticket said 'Heinz', and his gravestone says 'Henry'.

[@martinstubs6203]

How about English people with German names: Mark Knopfler's name translates as button maker.

[@blackforest_fairy]

enlish people with german names do probably have german ancestors..

[@ilvittore2544]

My surname is Sieger, the german word for winner. I think some ancestor of mine won something sometime?

[@lonestarr1490]

Maybe. But there's also the the city of Siegen not to far from Cologne. So maybe some ancestor of yours originated from there.

[@kikiorr9630]

My ancestors came to America from Bern, Switzerland, yet people assume our family name is German....Aeschliman. Do you have any thoughts on the matter?

[@rewboss]

They speak German in Switzerland. As well as French, Italian and Rhaeto-Romansch, but mostly German. And Bern is in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, so Aeschliman would be... Swiss German.

[@kaipeterson]

So, Gary Cooper would be Gerald Büttner?

[@accutus]

hatte heute das Vergnügen Herrn Fickert zu treffen. in english something like "Mr. Fucked". wonder what his ancestors did to gain this name. and since there are so little of Mr. Fickerts, where they any good in their profession?

[@peterschutzek325]

Kommt drauf an wo er herkommt. In Teilen Mitteldeutschlands bedeutet "Ficke" einfach nur "Tasche".

[@rewboss]

Probably a corruption of "Friedrich". Sorry to disappoint you.

[@peterschutzek325]

Ich bin weniger enttäuscht. Ich hatte ja nur eine wilde Vermutung gehabt.

[@Alias_Anybody]

Das Wort hatte noch mehr Bedeutungen. Das mit Friedrich ist mMn eher unwahrscheinlich.

[@accutus]

ich bin enttäuscht.

[@ronaldschwigel2286]

very good site thank you.

[@jimrenneker7653]

Family came to USA in 1842. The family name is Renneker. Any Thoughts?

[@schnelma605]

Renn short form from German given name Reinhard/Rennert/Reiner/Renner etc; -eke is a diminutive suffix. So it means small/little Reinhard/Rennert/Reiner/Renner

[@florianfox8100]

3:42 my name is in a rewboss video. are I am famous now?

[@FirebrandFA]

@2:50 Gut can also mean commodity.

[@ciararose976]

What about cooks would that be koch? Cook is how my name is pronounced

[@marcelthoma8890]

Yes cook is Koch but spoken with a voiceless velar frictive at the end like "Loch" in "Loch Ness". So James Cook is "Jakob Koch" and Thomas Cook "Thomas Koch". The other way around the name of the Koch-Brothers (Charles and David) from Koch Industries is more spoke like "coke", despite the obvious german origin.

[@honkforpeace007]

...and I swear, Koch has got absolutely nothing to do with cock (Hahn), wich is instantly provoking those well-known jokes when coming to an English-speaking country. I know exactly what I´m talking about, ´cause my name is Koch too. Btw Koch in Germany is one of the most common names (12th place of all common German names). What Marcel Thoma said about the phonetic aspects is completely right. So it is interesting that Americans pronounce it two ways "cock" (Greg Koch, an american guitarist does so) and "Kotsch" (Ed Koch, a former mayor of NY said that). So if you want to get an more exotic tone color just try to pronounce it the german way, it´s not that hard as you may believe....

[@veronicabarnhill2658]

My mom name is Erica pausard in Germany

[@alexreinhardt671]

My last name is Reinhardt I don't know what they were thinking

[@mylena3086]

maybe something about a pure (=rein) heart? It's also a first name so maybe the thing of being named after the dad applies there or both

[@blackforest_fairy]

probably one of your ancestors first na.e was Reinhardt... its a common first name for men in Germany. and it has a nice meaning it means the pure hearted one.

[@B.Ies_T.Nduhey]

​@@blackforest_fairyNo, it means a hard ruler

[@Ul.B]

​@@B.Ies_T.Nduhey Incorrect, the name Reinhard or Reinhardt is a male name, actually a first name, but as a patronym it is also used as a family name. The name Reinhardt is a compound, formed from derivatives of the Old High German words ragin ('advice, decision') and harti ('strong'), i.e. “the good advisor". So it has absolutely nothing to do with a hard ruler.

[@alesiaparis792]

-family history and names, forget NAME EXPERTS, if you you are German and you know your ancestry to family history 100 years back it is easy to find your roots. I used GEDBAS and found after switching to Wikipedia the "family founder" a baltic leader and warlord in the 12 century, one of his gandsons moved to the big city because it was dangerous to be a nobel but good to be rich and get registered with a germanized version (Verballornung) of the surename or nickname (at this time people often changed their name as adults, or better made their name. or chose one getting chieftain or lord of their clan). An other line of the family made names by themselves and one family is still changing their last name every generation out of a resource of names. But it is a mistake to belive people had no last name in Germany in the 17 or 18 hundreds many familys had not not only one last name but 2 or more last names. Imagin the name Schmitt or Müller. It is an inflationary often used name so the 30 Schmitt familys are called by their house, their profession, or somthing else. If there was a break in the Family or too many Schmitts in that Region the names where changed or explaind "genannt Kastener" "von der Mühle" "genannt Johan" "vom Bachhof" "Müller genannt Bauer" etc. "von" is often used as prefix for a nobel family, but the "nobel status is a bitch, expensiv and it can ruin you" i think 1/10 of the german population are low nobels from their namelines and allmost all are nobel decents because very few of their anchesters used the priviles to add a "Titel" to their names.

[@marcelthoma8890]

My name is Thoma, as you can see. It is not the correct genetiv-form. This would be Thomä or Thomae. In the 18th century many Jews and Sinti were forced by law to accept surenames, previously they had other naming traditions. So many Jews and their ancestors have the names Haas, Marx, Moos etc. or "fantasy" names like Rosenbusch (rose bush), Rosenblatt (rose leaf), Goldstein (gold stone) or something like this. And there the not german names like slavic ones. Through the ages they were often misspelled or pronounced incorrectly. For example the village Lederhose in Thuringia. Lederhose means literally leather breeches but the names for the viilage derives from the the slavic person's name Ludorad (Ludoraz = Ludorad's place). Or another example: I had a friend in university, his surename was Danis. He often said: "You have to speak it 'Danisch' (in English spelling "dunish"); the German Reich stole from us the "Hatschek" (caron) on the S." The caron in the Czech language turns the "s" into "sh".

[@dadolas]

nice job keep up the good work

[@Al69BfR]

Now you ruined Harry Potter to me forever. 😉 And when it comes to names after a profession, then there are also some who aren’t that obvious, because they changed how they were written over time or the name of the profession is not well known anymore but the profession it self still is. Another interesting topic are so called „Dorfnamen“ where people inherited their name or at least the name they were known by, from the people who lived in that specific house a long time ago.

[@B.Ies_T.Nduhey]

Whats wrong with a Potter?!

[@arminr.5174]

Schulze or Schulz is also a name based on occupation. A Schulze was basically a tax collector. Which makes me think, isnt being named Schulz impersonating an official?

[@mokinsen]

My last name is Blum (like the German word for flower "Blume" without the e at the end) Any idea where that came from? Probably my ancestors were gardeners

[@ertugrulgazi389]

My surname is Μπακιρτζής or Bakirtzis in Latin. It means copper smith and it has been Turkified during the Turkish rule over Greece.

[@veronicabarnhill2658]

Can you tell me if they still alive

[@Morgena1]

Oha, big Problem , I have a French Huguenots Name don't even know what's the meaning of it???

[@maryfroelich977]

I've been told that a descendant formed the first communist party in Germany. Has a Harry Hammer formed a communist party in Germany?

[@rtpricetag3536]

Moses Hess mentor of Karl Marx, Hess writing his Communist Credo, Marx later writing his Communist Manifesto... 18th century.

[@ericcarlson3746]

a descendent of yours?

[@SpektralJo]

my family name is Göltl. I think it has to do something with money

[@h2okopf415]

"Gölt" means reward. So "Götl" means "a small reward" , probably grounds or house. In Bavarian dialect. For example: " Vergöts Gott" means "Thank you". Literally "May God give you a reward".