As I was reading my latest issue of American Ancestors (Fall 2013, vol. 14, no. 4), from the New England Historic Genealogical Society, I found an interesting article by Henry Hoff. The article was entitled “Developing Acceptable Alternatives for First Names in Colonial New York”. He provides information on names among the Dutch, English, French and German settlers in Colonial New York.
There are resources that can provide English equivalents for
Dutch names. Arthur Kelly’s book, Names, Names, & More Names, Locating
your Dutch Ancestors in Colonial America, provides an extensive list on
pages 161 to 216. Since I am writing
this on St. Nicholas’ feast day, I want to point out that the list includes
thirty Dutch equivalents for the English name, Nicholas. Some are easy to recognize as equivalents,
such as “Klaas”, or “Niklas”. But would
you have recognized “Klobes” or “Klaywitz” as an equivalent?
For those researching their German ancestry, the notion of a
“Rufname” should be familiar. It is not
uncommon for a German to have a first name (Vorname), and a Rufname. Several children in the family may have the
same Vorname, e.g. Johann. However each
would have a different second name (the Rufname). For example two brothers might be named
Johann Georg and Johann Karl. The names
that the two would be known as would be Georg and Karl.
The article by Hoff passes along information the author
received in an email from Henry Z Jones.
There were apparently some German names that would be considered an
appropriate equivalent even though we might not see the connection. Jones indicated that a boy who was baptized
as Theobald might be called David, but that a boy baptized as David, would not
be called Theobald. As another example,
a boy baptized as Adolf might be called Adam, but not the other way around.
It might be difficult to find an individual baptized as
Theobald if he later used David as his name on records. Understanding the possible alternative could
be important to your research.
