ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1985 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1985 ************************************ From: "Brian M. Scott" 20 Apr 2000 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wrote to us concerning the historical accuracy of the name for a German man living in the period 500-1300. Here is what we found. For the first 500 years or more of your period most people were identified in written records by a single name: , , etc. Starting about the year 1000 it became increasingly common to identify people by a given name and a byname, an extra name used to make identification more certain. These bynames are of several types: patronymic, identifying the person as someone's son or daughter; locative, identifying the person by his place of origin or residence; descriptive nicknames, identifying the person by his habits or physical, mental, or moral attributes; and occupational, identifying the person by what he does. Simple juxtapositions of given name and byname (like ) are extremely rare before the last century or two of your period, so we'll discuss the name in that context. If you're interested in an earlier name, please write us again. is a standard modern form of a name that was spelled in a variety of ways even in just the last 200 years of your period. In early records it often appears in a Latinized form, e.g., 1105, 1241, 1288, 1139, and 1247. Much the most common German spelling was , which we have found from 1226 on through the Middle Ages. Other German spellings from your period include 1275, 1288, 1292, 1295, and 1296. [1, 2] It's worth noting that these spellings are all from the upper Rhine, from the southwestern corner of Germany and on into Switzerland. Medieval German was a complex patchwork of dialects, and it's not safe to assume that forms found in one part of Germany were used in other parts. In particular, our evidence for spellings in the 13th century is limited to the upper Rhine; for other parts of the country we recommend the common spelling . means 'farmer' and is an occupational byname. Occupational bynames are the least common type in early records: they are hardly found before about 1200, though they are quite common in records from the second half of the 13th century. [3] Unfortunately, we have not found or any of its dialect variants before the early 14th century: our earliest citations are 1311 (where stands for Latin 'called') and 1332. [4] A bit later we find 1354 and 1366 (where stands for German 'called'). [5] It seems likely that the byname was in use by 1300 in at least some areas, but we can't recommend it much earlier than that. Unfortunately, we aren't sure what form it would have taken in the area where we find spellings like . We found earlier examples of some other bynames for farmers. The most common one in our data from the upper Rhine was , literally 'field-man' or 'acre-man': 1260, 1274, 1274, 1279 and 1297. [6, 7] A little earlier yet we have 1247; the modern form of the byname is , which means 'farm laborer'. [8] (Here stands for the o-umlaut, an with two dots over it.) Finally, from 1237 we have an example of 'farmer'. [9] In summary, the names and , both meaning 'Dietrich (the) farmer', would fit right in along the upper Rhine in the 13th century. , with the same meaning, would be quite suitable in east-central Germany around 1300. We can't be entirely certain, but we think that the specific form is unlikely to have been used anywhere before the middle of the 14th century. We hope that this letter has been useful. Please write to us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. We were assisted in researching and writing this letter by Arval d'Espas Nord, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, and Juliana de Luna. For the Academy, Giles Leabrook and Talan Gwynek 20 April 2000 ===== References: [1] Talan Gwynek, "German Given Names 1200-1250" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1997) http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/talan/germ13/ [2] Socin, Adolf. Mittelhochdeutsches Namenbuch. Nach oberrheinischen Quellen des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1903; Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1966); pp. 11-12, 106. [3] Ibid., p. 547. [4] Schwarz, Ernst. Deutsche Namenforschung. I: Ruf- und Familiennamen (Goettingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1949); s.n. Bauer. [5] Brechenmacher, Josef Karlmann. Etymologisches Woerterbuch der deutschen Familiennamen (Limburg a. d. Lahn, C. A. Starke-Verlag, 1957-1960); s.n. Bau(e)r. [6] Ibid. s.n. Ackermann. [7] Socin, op. cit., p. 468. [8] Brechenmacher, op. cit. s.n. Ackerknecht. [9] Socin, op. cit., p. 472.