Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Why doso many German names have "von" with the last name?







It literally means 'from' and usually it signified nobility, and should be spelled with a small v "von".





In Germany, there is a distinction between historic nobility (historischer Adel), i.e. knighted by a king or the Emperor and the citizen nobility (B眉rgeradel), which derived their von from the pure description of a place of origin, e.g. Gerhardt Schmied von Ehringen (Gerhardt the Smith from Ehringen).





Historic nobility has the right to abreviate the von as v. (e.g. Lothar Freiherr v.Richthofen), whereas the citizen nobilty has to spell out the "von".





In Switzerland, von is mostly a description of place of origin, because from 1191 on, nobody could be elevated to a rank of nobility. Some exceptions are immigrants or locals knighted by foreign powers outside the Swiss Federation (e.g. von Habsburg).





In Austria, "von" can mean either a place of origin or nobility.




Why doso many German names have "von" with the last name?
Von (or Van, in Dutch) is equivalent of the English "Of". It is most often associated with nobility. Roger of Staffordshire would be a nobleman, and Staffordshire would be the lands granted to his family by the king, or won in battle or whatever. German names which begin with Von are similar, and have similar backgrounds. The French equivalent is "De" as is the Spanish "Del."
Reply:Von means 'of' and it can refer either to the place where the family originated, or the surname of the patriarch. In the latter case, it's the equivalent of Mac, Mc or O' in Scotland or Ireland.
Reply:von means "of" so von as part of a surname would usually indicate where the family was from


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