ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2719 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2719 ************************************ 09 Sep 2003 From: Marianne Perdomo Machin Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wrote about a name appropriate for a German woman. You were interested in surname and in names similar in sound to and . Before we start, we'd like to apologize for the time it has taken to finish this letter. The surname appears to be an Anglicized form of , a German surname meaning 'of or from Mu"nchhausen'. (Here stands for a u-umlaut.) This name is found in the 16th century in the following forms: von Monnichhusen 1530 [1] van Mu"nchhusen 1564 [2] von Mu"nchhausen 1586 [2] All of these citations are from the historic County of Schaumburg, which is about 50 miles south of the city of Hannover, in Lower Saxony, and corresponds roughly to the triangle bounded by the cities of Rinteln, Stadthagen, and Oldendorf. Any of these three spellings is suitable for northern Germany in the 16th century; the third is the usual modern spelling. We have also found an earlier citation without the preposition and with a different spelling: in use in 1321 [3]. Note, though, that in the 14th century the spellings are likely to be similar to , and not much like . We can thus recommend as a surname for 16th century Germany and for 14th century Germany. and related forms stem from a Latin name, from the word "birthday", referring to Christmas. It was used by early Christians, like the 4th century martyr St. Natalia. and are French forms first found in England in the second half of the 19th century. is a Russian form of the name, imported to English in the 20th century [4]. We have found French examples of from the 10th to the 11th centuries, though at least one may be from the 9th c. It's the precursor to the name for which we found an instance dated to the 14th century. The masculine version of that name, , is found much earlier [5]. We have also seen some intermediate forms like and [6]. Regarding the name , we know it's now used in Germany, but don't know when it came into use [7]. We haven't found any solid evidence of its use in pre-modern Germany. It seems to have become popular there only after the 1800s [8, 9]. We thus believe it's very unlikely to have been used in 14th - 16th c. Germany. As an alternative we suggest you consider other German names to match your surname. We found, for example, the following names beginning with : Date Form of Nyze 1324 Agnes [10] Nethe 1383 Agnes [10] Nese 15th c. Agnes [11] Niesenn 15th c. Agnes [12] Nele 1385-97 Elisabeth [9, 13] Neleke 1371 Elisabeth [9, 13] We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Falk vom Weserbogen, Arval Benicoeur, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Talan Gwynek, Solveig Throndardottir and Maridonna Benvenuti. For the Academy, Leonor Martin 9 September 2003 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References: [1] Maack, Walter, _Stadtgeschichte Rinteln_, C.Bo"sendahl Verlag Rinteln, 1989. [2] Ko"lling, Friedrich, _Dienst- und Steueregister der Schaumburgischen Vogtei Fischbeck aus dem 15. bis 17.Jahrhundert_, Verlag C.Bo"sendahl Rinteln 1970. [3] We found the name , dated to 1321. Brechenmacher, Josef Karlmann, _Etymologisches Woerterbuch der deutschen Familiennamen_ (Limburg a. d. Lahn, C. A. Starke-Verlag, 1957-1960); s.n. Mu"nchhausen. [4] Dunkling, Leslie and William Gosling, _The New American Dictionary of First Names_ (New York: Signet Books, 1983), s.nn. Natalia, Natasha, Nathalie. [5] Perouas, L., B. Barrie\re, B., J. Boutier; J.-C. Peyronnet, & J. Tricard, _Le/onard, Marie, Jean et les Autres: Les Pre/noms en Limousin depuis un Mille/naire (Paris: E/ditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1984); (50-1). [6] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Les Noms de Personne sur le Territoire de l'Ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe Siecle_, three volumes (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1972), II:81 s.n. Natalia. [7] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), s.n. Natalia [8] Drosdowski, Guenther, _Duden Lexikon der Vornamen_, 2nd ed. (Mannheim: Dudenverlag, 1974); s.n. . The author states that the name was never very popular but was used quite a bit in literature starting around 1800. [9] Bahlow, Hans, _Unsere Vornamen im Wandel der Jahrhunderte_, Vol. 4 in the series _Grundriss der Genealogie_ (Limburg a. d. Lahn: C. A. Starke Verlag, 1965); s.n. . This work also mentions the literary popularity of the name during the 19th century and further mentions that a granddaughter of the German author Johann Gottfried Herder was christened in 1802. [10] Talan Gwynek, "Medieval German Given Names from Silesia", revised edition (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1999). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/talan/bahlow/ [11] Brechenmacher, op. cit.; s.nn. Nesen(hans), Nesensohn. [12] Mulch, Roland, _Arnsburger Personennamen: Untersuchungen zum Namenmaterial aus anrsburger Urkunden vom 13. - 16. Jahrhundert_ (Darmstadt & Marburg: Hessischen Historischen Kommission Darmstadt and the Historischen Kommission fu:r Hessen, 1974); (40) [13] In other cases could be a pet form of or . Drosdowski, op. cit.; s.n. Nele.