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ArchivesRe: Surname
in reply to a message by Cyke
The following was a response to a letter I sent to a Rutgers University professor of German language. I had the same question about the Shover name.
I'll tell you what I know now about the possibilities for your German
name. The only words that use the combination "sh" in German are new ones
imported from English (like the word "show," for example). "Sch" would
have been the combination used, but the more interesting thing is the vowel
"o" in your name, because that could have come from any number of vowels or
vowel combinations when your ancestors were still in Germany. My family
name, for example, was actually the German "Boeger" until my
great-grandfather emigrated to Dublin, Ireland, in the late 1800s and
changed it to Baker. In Germany, they wrote the name as "Boger" with an
umlaut over the "o," but that's been lost in translation.
A similar thing might have happened to your name, but I could take some
better guesses at what the vowels might have been if you could tell me what
part of Germany your family hails from and what you know about their
movements. For example, did they enter the USA via Holland, France or
England? Did they go through Denmark, England, or Italy? The
Anglicization of foreign names at ports of entry such as Ellis Island can
often be explained by where the clerks thought the new arrivals were
from. If your family name were, for example, originally Schaufer or
something close to that, but they came from somewhere near the French
border (or even a disputed region like Alsace, which is sort of half-German
and half-French), one generation could have been enough time to see the
German pronunciation of the "au" (which would have sounded like the English
"ow," as in "how") become more like the French pronunciation of "au" (which
would sound like the "o" in "over").
So, if you can tell me anything you know about your family's geographical
origin within Germany, I might be able to give you a more precise
guess. Here are some preliminary possibilities, though, of where your name
might be derived from:
schaufeln: to shovel or to dig (it's very common for names to reflect
people's occupations of long ago, like "Miller" or "Baker" in English)
schaefer: shepherd
schoeffe: juror
schiffer: sailor or boatman
Hope this helps. Let me know, though, where your family's from, and I'll
try to either narrow it down or give you some other possibilities.
I'll tell you what I know now about the possibilities for your German
name. The only words that use the combination "sh" in German are new ones
imported from English (like the word "show," for example). "Sch" would
have been the combination used, but the more interesting thing is the vowel
"o" in your name, because that could have come from any number of vowels or
vowel combinations when your ancestors were still in Germany. My family
name, for example, was actually the German "Boeger" until my
great-grandfather emigrated to Dublin, Ireland, in the late 1800s and
changed it to Baker. In Germany, they wrote the name as "Boger" with an
umlaut over the "o," but that's been lost in translation.
A similar thing might have happened to your name, but I could take some
better guesses at what the vowels might have been if you could tell me what
part of Germany your family hails from and what you know about their
movements. For example, did they enter the USA via Holland, France or
England? Did they go through Denmark, England, or Italy? The
Anglicization of foreign names at ports of entry such as Ellis Island can
often be explained by where the clerks thought the new arrivals were
from. If your family name were, for example, originally Schaufer or
something close to that, but they came from somewhere near the French
border (or even a disputed region like Alsace, which is sort of half-German
and half-French), one generation could have been enough time to see the
German pronunciation of the "au" (which would have sounded like the English
"ow," as in "how") become more like the French pronunciation of "au" (which
would sound like the "o" in "over").
So, if you can tell me anything you know about your family's geographical
origin within Germany, I might be able to give you a more precise
guess. Here are some preliminary possibilities, though, of where your name
might be derived from:
schaufeln: to shovel or to dig (it's very common for names to reflect
people's occupations of long ago, like "Miller" or "Baker" in English)
schaefer: shepherd
schoeffe: juror
schiffer: sailor or boatman
Hope this helps. Let me know, though, where your family's from, and I'll
try to either narrow it down or give you some other possibilities.
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