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ArchivesRoswitha/Sette
I posted before about my great great aunt Sette. She is German. Sette is a nickname and I have no idea what for. I asked my grandmother about it and she said she can't remember because they never called her anything but Sette. She did say that Roswitha sounded familiar. Does anyone know the likelihood of Sette as a nickname for Roswitha in Germany? She would have been born in the late 1800s, if that helps.
"It's the job that is never started that takes the longest to finish." - J.R.R. Tolkien
http://babynames.com/namelist/9415432
"It's the job that is never started that takes the longest to finish." - J.R.R. Tolkien
http://babynames.com/namelist/9415432
This message was edited 10/27/2010, 8:38 PM
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Replies
I'm sorry not to be very helpful here: I looked up Sette in my two very good German namebooks - they don't list it. I googled it in German, I tried German wiki - nothing to work with there.
All I can do now is give you my opinion: Sette seems like a big stretch from Roswitha to me BUT I live in a region where a Matthias could go by Hirsl and everyone would know his real name just from the nickname (talk about a strech eh?).
So yes, there is a possiblity that Sette's full name was Roswitha but as Roswitha herself is so rare in Germany nowadays nobody would assume Sette to be a Roswitha in her birth certificate ;)
All I can do now is give you my opinion: Sette seems like a big stretch from Roswitha to me BUT I live in a region where a Matthias could go by Hirsl and everyone would know his real name just from the nickname (talk about a strech eh?).
So yes, there is a possiblity that Sette's full name was Roswitha but as Roswitha herself is so rare in Germany nowadays nobody would assume Sette to be a Roswitha in her birth certificate ;)
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I just came across an instance of Sette for Elisabeth, which seems more likely than Roswitha. However, Sette's mother was Elisabeth "Betche" and I'm not sure if she was named after her mother or not.
To go along with what you've just described, my family is from Lampertheim in Hesse and quite a few of them have nicknames that aren't obvious that they come from their given names. I have a great great aunt Margarete who went by Maje and a great great aunt Christina who went by Dina, and the list goes on.
Thanks for the reply, it has definitely given me something to consider. :)
To go along with what you've just described, my family is from Lampertheim in Hesse and quite a few of them have nicknames that aren't obvious that they come from their given names. I have a great great aunt Margarete who went by Maje and a great great aunt Christina who went by Dina, and the list goes on.
Thanks for the reply, it has definitely given me something to consider. :)
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Now Elisabeth --> Sette makes more sense to my ears than Roswitha --> Sette would. If her mother's name was Elisabeth, could that be the reason for her only to be known as Sette? It does make sense to me: They share a pretty common name, you need to distinguish the two, so they get different nicknames...
This message was edited 10/28/2010, 12:32 PM
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SETTE is not listed in W. Seibicke's Historisches Deutsches Vornamenbuch. This makes it rather unlikely that Sette is or was actually used as a registered given name.
Seibicke has SETTCHEN, though: pet form of Lisette. And this makes sense to me and could well be the missing link to Elisabeth. Of course Lisette is a French variant of Elisabeth, but the German pronunciation lee-zeh-teh is possible and would lead to Sette (zeh-teh).
Roswitha as the origin of Sette seems very unlikely to me.
Seibicke has SETTCHEN, though: pet form of Lisette. And this makes sense to me and could well be the missing link to Elisabeth. Of course Lisette is a French variant of Elisabeth, but the German pronunciation lee-zeh-teh is possible and would lead to Sette (zeh-teh).
Roswitha as the origin of Sette seems very unlikely to me.
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