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18th Century German Naming Conventions by Charles F. Kerchner, Jr.

18th Century PA German Naming Conventions

Internet: www.kalglo.com/germname.htm

Date: Written 18 August 1995 Updated 12 October 1997

From: Charles F. Kerchner, Jr.
5507 Louise Lane
Northampton PA 18067-9076
E-mail: kerchner@compuserve.com

1 . At baptism, if two given names were given to the child, the first given name was a spiritual, saint's name, originally developed from Roman Catholic tradition and continued by the Protestants in their baptismal naming customs. The second given name was the secular or call name, which is the name the person was known by, both within the family and to this rest of the world. The spiritual name, usually to honor a favorite saint, was usually repeatedly given to all the children of that family of the same sex. Thus the boys would be Johan Adam Kerchner, Johan George Kerchner, etc., or Philip Peter Kerchner, Philip Jacob Kerchner, etc. Girls would be named Anna Barbara Kerchner, Anna Margaret Kerchner, etc., or Maria Elizabeth Kerchner, Maria Catherine Kerchner, etc. But after baptism, these people would not be known as John, Philip, Anna, or Maria, respectively. They would instead be known by what we would think of now as their middle name, which was their secular name. Thus these people would be known respectively as Adam, George, Peter, Jacob, Barbara, Margaret, Elizabeth, and Catherine in legal and secular records.

For males, the saint's name Johan or John was particularly heavily used by many German families. The child's secular name was really John, if and only if, at baptism he was named only John, usually Johannes, with no second given name. Many researchers, new to German names, who find a baptism of an individual with a name such as Johan Adam Kerchner, thus mistakenly spend a lot of time looking for a John Kerchner, in legal and census records, when he was known after baptism, to the secular world, as Adam Kerchner. Also when reading county histories, etc., especially those written by individuals in the 20th century, and the author is referring to someone as John Kerchner, and you are not looking for a John Kerchner, but the history sounds otherwise familiar, further research may turn up that this person was really not a John Kerchner, but instead was someone else such as a Johan George Kerchner. You would thus find all his 18th century records recorded under the name George Kerchner and not John Kerchner and therefore after checking the data and correlating the facts you may find this is really a story about your missing George Kerchner.

2 . The term " Senior " and " Junior " following a name did not necessarily imply a father and son relationship, as it does now. It could have been an uncle and nephew who had the same name and lived near each other. It could be a grandfather and a grandchild living together, where the father has died. It could even be two unrelated individuals with the same name but of different ages who lived near each other. So to help friends and business associates keep track of who-was-who in their discussions and records, they added on the "Sr." or "Jr." which merely meant the older and the younger, respectively.

3 . The term cousin was widely used to mean an extended family, not the specific legal definition we understand it to be today.

4. I t was a common practice in some German families to name the first born son after the child's paternal grandfather and the second born son after the maternal grandfather. Here are several more detailed naming patterns practiced by some families.

Pattern A

1st son after the father's father
2nd son after the mother's father
3rd son after the father
4th son after the husband's father's father
5th son after the wife's father's father
6th son after the husband's mother's father
7th son after the wife's mother's father

1st daughter after the wife's mother
2nd daughter after the husband's mother
3rd daughter after the mother
4th daughter after the father's father's mother
5th daughter after the mother's father's mother
6th daughter after the father's mother's mother
7th daughter after the mother's mother's mother

Pattern B

The pattern B for the sons is the same as the above but this pattern for daughters was different

1st daughter after the father's mother
2nd daughter after the mother's mother
3rd daughter after the mother
4th daughter after the mother's father's mother
5th daughter after the father's father's mother

Pattern C

1st son after the father's father
2nd son after the mother's father
3rd son after the father's oldest brother
4th son after the father

1st daughter after the father's mother
2nd daughter after the mother's mother
3rd daughter after the mother's oldest sister
4th daughter after the mother

Whenever a duplicate name occurred in these patterns, the next name in the series was used. If a child died in infancy the name was often reused for the next child of the same gender.

If you are lucky enough to find a family with a lot of children, who strictly followed one of these naming patterns, then it may give you useful clues to determining the possible names of family members in earlier generations.
5. An " in " or " en ", added to the end of a name, such as Anna Maria Kerchnerin, is a Germanic language name ending suffix denoting that the person is female. Thus the correct spelling of
the last name in the example would be Kerchner, not Kerchnerin.

6. An " er " or " ner ", added to a surname based on the name of something, denoted that the person worked with that object or at that occupation, if the main portion of the name was an object or an occupation, or that the person was from that geographic location or city, if the main portion of the name was a geographic location.
Examples: Forst is German for a forest, thus Forster is one who worked in a forest or with woodlands or was from a forest. Berlin is a city in Germany, thus Berliner is one who is from Berlin. Since English is a Germanic rooted language we do the same thing in English, i.e., Paint(er), Garden(er), New York(er).

The suffixes mentioned in 5. and 6. above are compounded in many cases. The nouns Kirche and Kerche are German words for church. Thus for the surname Kerchnerin, i.e., Kerch(ner)(in) we thus have a person who worked in or near a church who is female.

I hope that the above information will be of assistance to individuals researching 18th Century Pennsylvania-German names and records.

Sorry, but I cannot give you specific advice or answer questions about individual German names. For information on specific names consult one of the following excellent books.

For additional information on " German-American Names " consult the book by that name written by Professor George F. Jones published by the Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, MD.

For additional information on German names, consult the 1967 book written by Hans Bahlow. The English version titled " Dictionary of German Names " was translated by Edda Gentry. It was published in 1993 by the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI.

Charles F. Kerchner, Jr.
5507 Louise Lane
Northampton PA 18067-9076
USA
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Copyright ©1996, Charles F. Kerchner, Jr.
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Created - October 1996