Deutsche Familiennamen

Each of the types of German family names is explained and examples are given. These are: 1) family names from what were originally first names, e.g. Albrecht, Bode, Eberhardt (an alphabetical list with variations pp. 12 - 13); 2) family names derived from places of origin and dwelling place within a community, e.g. Bayer/Baier/Beyer (from Bavaria), Pöhland, Baumgarten (orchard), Berg (mountain) (pp. 17 - 20); 3) from occupations, e.g. Krämer/Kramer/Cramer (shopkeeper), Wagner/Wegner (cartwright) (pp. 21 - 26); 4) from personal characteristics, e.g. Langbein (long leg), Klein (small), Schnell (fast) and in relation to animals, e.g. Wolf, to plants, Blum/Blom, and ranks, e.g. Kaiser, König, Fürst (prince), Herzog (duke), Graf (earl or count) (pp.26 - 30), and more. The many examples are intriguing. The author also explains succinctly the two pronunciation shifts that were part of the split into high and low German, one of these involving the consonants p, t, and k about 1000 years ago, and the other being the vowels in the 14th and 15th centuries, both of which affected not only name pronunciation, but also the written forms of names.