§ 2 Family Names Modified
With several concurrent languages, the deterioration of names is an obvious process. Among the mixed population of Baltimore, the name ‘Bradley’ is to a Frenchman Bras-de-long; for ‘Strawberry’ (alley) and ‘Havre-de-grâce’ (in Maryland) the Germans say Strubbel, and Hasel-im-gras; and the Irish make the following changes—
| Carron (French) | Scarron | Schöffeler | Scofield |
| Coquerelle | Corcoran | van Dendriessche | Driscol |
| de Vries | Freezer | van Emstede | Hampsted |
| Giessen | Gleason | Winsiersski | Winchester |
| Grimm | Grimes | Fayette Street | Faith St. |
| Henning | Hannon | Alice Ann St. | Alexander St. |
| Rosier | Rosetree | Happy Alley | Apple Alley |
A German with a name which could not be appreciated, was called John Waterhouse because he attended a railroad tank—a name which he adopted and placed upon his sign when he subsequently opened a small shop. A German family became ostensibly Irish by preferring the sonant phase of their initial—calling and writing themselves Grady instead of Krady; a name ‘Leuter’ became Lander; ‘Amweg’ was tried a while as Amwake and then resumed; and in a family record, the name ‘George’ is given as Schorts. A postoffice ‘Chickis’ (Chikiswalungo—place where crayfish burrow) received a letter directed to Schickgets, another Schickens Laenghaester Caunte, and ‘Berks County’ has been spelled Burgix Caunte.77
The following German and Anglicised forms may be compared,—
| Albrecht | Albright | Leitner | Lightner |
| Bachman | Baughman | Leybach | Libough |
| Becker | Freeauf | Mayer | Moyer |
| Dock | Duck | Meyer | Mire |
| Eberhardt | Everhart | Mosser | Musser |
| Eberle | Everly | Mosseman | Musselman |
| Eckel | Eagle | Neumeyer | Narmire |
| Ege78 | Hagy? | Noll | Null |
| Ewald | Evalt | Nüssli | Nicely, Nissly |
| Fehr | Fair | Oberholtzer | Overholser |
| Frey (free) | Fry | Pfautz | Fouts, Pouts |
| Früauf | Freeauf | Pfeiffer | Pyfer |
| Fusz (foot) | Foose | Reif (ripe) | Rife |
| Geisz (goat) | Gise | Reisinger | Riesinger |
| Gerber | Garber | Riehm | Ream |
| Giebel | Gibb | Roth (red) | Roath, Rote |
| Gräff | Graff, -o, -ae | Ruth | Root |
| Guth | Good, Goot | Schellenberger | Shallyberger80 |
| Haldeman | Holderman79 | Schenk | Shank |
| Herberger | Harberger | Scheuerman | Shireman |
| Hinkel | Hinkle | Schnebele | Snavely |
| Hofman | Hoofman | Schneider | Snyder, Snider |
| Huber | Hoover | Seip | Sype, Sipe |
| Kaufman | Coffman | Seipel | Seiple, Sible |
| Kaufroth | Cuffroot | Seitz | Sides |
| Kehler | Kaylor | Senz | Sense |
| Kochenauer | Goughnour | Spraul | Sprowl |
| Koick | Cowhawk | Stambach | Stambough |
| Krauskopf | Krosskop | Strein | Strine |
| Kreider | Crider | Valentin | Felty |
| Kreybil | Graypeel | WeltzhuBer | BeltzhooVer81 |
| Kühnlein | Coonly, -ley | Wetter | Fetter |
| Kutz | Kutts | Wĭld | Wilt |
So ‘Schleyermacher’ passed thro Slaremaker to Slaymaker; and by a similar process, farther changes may take place, like Mutsch to Much, Bertsch to Birch, Brein to Brine, Schutt to Shoot or Shut, Rüppel to Ripple, Knade (gnade grace) to Noddy, Buch to Book, Stahr to Star, Fing-er to Fin-ger, Melling-er to Mellin-jer, Stilling-er82 to Stillin-jer, Cōver to Cŏver, Fuhrman to Foreman, Rohring83 to Roaring, Gehman to Gayman.
Names are sometimes translated, as in Stoneroad for ‘Steinweg,’ Carpenter for both ‘Schreiner’ and ‘Zimmermann,’ and both Short and Little for ‘Kurz’ or ‘Curtius.’
Part of a name may be anglicised, as in Finkbine, Espenshade, Trautwine—where the first syllable has the German sound. Fentzmaker is probably a condensation of Fenstermacher.
It is remarkable that speakers of German often use English forms of baptismal names, as Mary for Marîa, Henry for Heinrich, and John (tschan, shorter than the medial English sound) for Johannes.84
Of curious family names without regard to language, the following may be recorded—premising that proper names are especially subject to be made spurious by the accidents of typography.85
Ahl, Awl, Ammon, Annĕ, Barndollar, Baud, Bezoar, Bigging, Blades, Bohrer, Boring, Book, Bracken, Bricker (bridger), Buckwalter, Burkholder and Burchhalter (burg-holder), Byler, Candle, Candour, Care, Case, Channell, Chronister, Condit, Cooher, Cumberbus (Smith’s Voyage to Guinea, 1744), Curgus or Circus, Dehoof, Dialogue, Ditto, Dosh, Eave, Eldridge (in part for Hildreth), Erb, Eyde, Eyesore (at Lancaster, Pa.), Fassnacht (G. fastnacht shrovetide), Feather, Ferry (for the Walloon name Ferree86); Friday, Fornaux, Furnace, Gans (goose, Gansert, Gensemer, Grossgensly), Gift (poison), Ginder, Gruel, Gutmann (good-man) Hag (hedge), Harmany, Hecter, Hepting, Herd, Heard, Hergelrat (rath counsel), Hinderer, Hock, Holzhauer and Holzhower (woodchopper), Honnafusz (G. hahn a cock), Kash, Kitch, Koffer, Landtart, Lawer, Leis, Letz, Licht, Line, Lipp, Lœb (lion), Lœwr (at St. Louis), Mackrel, Manusmith, Matt, Marrs, Mehl, Mortersteel, Mowrer (G. maur a wall), Napp, Neeper (Niebuhr?), Nohaker, Nophsker, Ochs, Over, Oxworth, Peelman, Penas (in Ohio), Pfund, Popp, Poutch, Quirk, Rathvon (Rodfong, Rautfaung), Road, Rottenstein (in Texas), Rutt, Sangmeister, Scheuerbrand, Schlegelmilch, Schlong (snake), Schœttel, Segar, Seldomridge, Senn, Service (in Indiana), Shaver, Shilling, Shinover, Shock, Shot, Showers, Skats (in Connecticut), Smout, Spoon, Springer, Steer (in Texas), Stern, Stetler, Stormfeltz, Strayer, Stretch, Stridle, Sumption, Surgeon, Swoop (a Suabian), Test, Tise, Tice (Theiss?), Tittles, Towstenberier, Tyzat (at St. Louis), Umble, Venus, Venerich,-rik, Vestal (in Texas), Vinegar(’s Ferry, on the Susquehanna), Vogelsang, Wallower, Waltz, Wolfspanier, Wonder, Woolrick (for Wulfrich?), Work, Worst, Yaffe, Yecker, Yeisley, Yordea, Zeh, Zugschwerdt.
Among the following curious, incompatible, or hĭbrid87 names, titles (except that of ‘General’) have been mistaken for proper names—Horatio Himmereich, Owen Reich, Caspar Reed, Dennis Loucks, Baltzer Stone, Addison Shelp, Paris Rudisill, Adam Schuh, Erasmus Buckenmeyer, Peter Pence, General Wellington H. Ent, General Don Carlos Buel, Don Alonzo Cushman, Sir Frank Howard, Always Wise (probably for Alŏîs Weiss). In November, 1867, Gilbert Monsieur Marquis de Lafayette Sproul, asked the legislature of Tennessee to cut off all his names but the last two.
Footnotes
70 Shrove-tide cakes—with the PG. pronunciation, except st.
71 G. Knochen (bones).
72 A teacher asked a class—If I were to cut an apple in two, what would you call one of the pieces? “A half.” And in four? “A fourth.” And if I cut it in eight equal pieces, what would one of them be? “A snit!”
73 Compare—O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!
Hysterica passio, thou climbing sorrow,
Thy element’s below.—King Lear, act 2, sc. 4, speech 20, v. 54.
—A. J. Ellis.
74 The German word appears to be gautschen without the n. So Schmeller (Bayerisches Wörterbuch, 2, 87) “gautschen, getschen, schwanken, schaukeln.” Adelung (Wörterbuch der hochdeutschen Mundart, 2, 439) explains it as a technical paper-maker’s word for taking the sheets out of the mould and laying them upon the press-board, Gautschbret. He adds that a carrying chair was formerly called a Gautsche, and refers it to Kutsche and French coucher.—A. J. E.
75 Compare Papageno’s song in Mozart’s Zauberflöte:
Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja
Stets lustig, heisa, hopsasa.—A. J. Ellis.
76 Known probably throughout England. Known to me, a Londoner, from earliest childhood.—A. J. Ellis.
77 The geographical names at the close of Chapter I. p. 6, are Kentucky, Safe Harbor, Syracuse, and Pinegrove. The drags are aloes (pronounced as in Latin!), paregoric, citrine ointment, acetic acid, hiera piera, cinnamon, Guiana pepper, gentian, cinchona, opium, hive syrup, senna and manna mixed, sulphate of zink, corrosive sublimate, red precipitate, aniline, logwood, Epsom salts, magnesia, cordial, cubebs, bichromate of potash, valerian (G. Baldrian), laurel berries, cochineal.
78 Rhymes plaguey, even in English localities.
79 As if from the plant elder, instead of Swiss halde, a steep or declivity—the name being Swiss.
80 And Shellabarger, American Minister to Portugal, 1869.
81 The ‘b’ and ‘v’ of the two forms have changed place.
82 These names, with Rauch, Bucher, the Scotch Cochran, etc., are still pronounced correctly in English speaking localities in Pennsylvania; and at Harrisburg, ‘Salade’ rhymes holid’y.
83 The organists Thunder and Rohr gave a concert in Philadelphia some years ago. In New York I have seen the names ‘Stone and Flint,’ and ‘Lay and Hatch,’ where the proper name takes precedence.
84 In the following inscription on a building, ‘bei’ instead of ‘von’ shows an English influence. The author knew English well: was a member of the state legislature, had a good collection of English—but not of German books—and yet preferred a German inscription—
ERBAUET BEI JOHN & MARIA HALDEMAN 1790.
Inscriptions are commonly in the roman character, from the difficulty of cutting the others.
85 As in ‘Chladori’ for Chladni, in the American edition of the Westminster Review for July, 1865. The name Slyvons stands on the title-page as the author of a book on Chess (Bruxelles, 1856), which M. Cretaine in a similar work (Paris, 1865) gives as Solvyns. Upon calling Mr. C.’s attention to this point, he produced a letter from the former, signed Solvyns.
86 The forms of this name are Ferree, Ferrie, Fuehre, Ferie, Verre, Fiere, Firre, Ferry, Feire, Fire; and as ‘Ferree’ is now pronounced Free, this may be a form also. In the year 1861, when in Nassau, I observed that the English visitors pronounced the name of a building in four modes, one German and three not German—Bâdhaus, Bath-house, Bad-house, and Bawd-house.
87 Latin HIBRIDA. I have marked the first English syllable short to dissociate it from the high-breed of gardeners and florists, which ‘hȳbrid’ suggests.