AMERICANS GET THIS WRONG ABOUT GERMAN NAMES | The Ellis Island Myth
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 มิ.ย. 2024
- German-Americans are the largest self-reported ancestry group within the United States, accounting for roughly 49 million people... but there is one persistent falsehood about the names of those who entered Ellis Island, and it might just have you re-thinking your last name too.
Episode 106 | #germany #usa #germanamerican #americaningermany #ancestry #germanancestry #genealogy #genealogyresearch #ellisisland #emigration #imigration #immigrant #migration #migrant #comingtoamerica #german #germanancestry #america #livingabroad | Filmed April 22nd, 2023
Jump to Your Favorite Topic:
00:00 Intro
01:59 The Issue with a Ship's Manifest Destiny
05:28 We don't give Ellis Island officials enough credit
07:35 How easy was it to assume an alias?
10:19 Why would a German change their name?
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Originally from the Midwest of the USA, we moved to the #blackforest in 2013 and quickly embraced #expatlife. As American expats living in #Germany, things weren't always easy, but we've grown to love our life in Germany. We started this #travelvlog to share our experiences with friends and family, and to help those who are interested in moving overseas! Whether you are interested in moving abroad, working abroad, studying abroad, raising a family abroad, or just want to #traveleurope, we're here to give you a first person look at what lies ahead. 😊🎥🌎
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My fondest memory of true inclusion in the US: during my student exchange in Madison WI, my best friend was an asian girl with Korean roots, Jenny Bauknecht. She hadn't even heard of the fabulous German manufacturer of washing-machines😂😂🎉❤
How did a Korean come to the name Bauknecht?
@@SchmulKrieger if i remember correctly, her Korean mom married an American bloke with that name in the 70s.
And where does the very East German first name come from?
@@Enkaptaton 😂😂😂👍...de Jenny, dr Mike und dr Ricö...
What does that have to do with inclusion?
Another really good video. My family was somewhat mixed in this regard. My great uncle changed but my grandmother did not. My uncle George went from Georg Schade to George Shade to "anglicize" his name to be more in line with the community. My grandmother kept her first name since Christina was a common English name and she took her husband's name when she got married. I remember my grandmother telling me that there was a big wave of name changes in the German community during WWI and WWII for obvious reasons. I took a couple of trips to Ellis Island in the past since I lived just a few hours drive away. I was lucky enough to trace three out of four branches of the family tree there and found entry dates, ship names and departure ports. One thing I noticed is that since the records were hand written is that sometimes the writing of the immigration officer were not as clear as the records that get shown as examples. Many were written in cursive and the individual styles varied. A, O and E can get hard to tell apart as written. Also foreign accents were commonly left out (like an umlaut in German or la cedille in French). Keep up the good work.
I'm German and live in Germany, but a relative from our family fled to the U.S. after the German Revolution of 1848 and slightly altered his last name to make it more English sounding, as well as changing his first name from Eduard to Edward, probably to blend in.
Growing up in Germany I had never heard of the Ellis Island myth before. I was taught at school that coming to the United States, immigrants had changed their names on purpose in order to be more integrated into society, not that these name changes happened by accident or due to ignorance at immigration. Thank you for explaining this common misconception that I wasn’t even aware of until now, it’s really interesting to me :)
Family lore was always that our name was originally Brodt and was changed to be less German. But, I found local church records in Germany and the name was always Brod. It is actually still the common spelling in the part of Germany they came from. Doing research, family names changed over time even in Germany.
Spelling of german names is not really easy even for other Germans. I mean Schmidt/Schmitt/Schmied/Schmid etc is a VERY common name, but has like dozens of different spellings depending of region and even religion. So officials in Hamburg writing down a name from Bavaria were very likely to get the spelling wrong.
Meier/Meyer/Mayer/Maier... yeah. And that'S not even going into dialects, I can easily imagine Hamburg or Bremen messing up Bavarian names. But that doesn't turn Schmidt into Smith.
True, but this is a common issue in many languages.
And it gets even worse when one takes into acount shifts in spelling within German speaking communities. Think oe to ö, ae to ä, ue to ü which even Genealogy apps get wrong and do not recognize as the same name. Or the shift from ch to k, ck to k, y to ie or i.
Schröder and Schröter. The name Schneider has the same meaning. to cut off
@@jensschroder8214 this is a completely different issue. Pfister and Bäcker/Becker are also the same by meaning, and so is Jäger/Waidmann/Weidmann etc etc
I am positively amazed every time by the topics covered. Apart from the interesting topics, each topic is worked out in a great way. Both visually and in terms of documentation and resources. I am not German or American, but still, every video is interesting to watch. Hats off!!! 👍
Highly enlightening. Thank you very much!
Have a nice sunday, Ashton. Your video just contributes to mine 👋🤓
Yeah - Happy 50k subbies to you! Glückwunsch 🥰 !!
I've once been contacted by a person from the us searching for relatives here in Germany due to my last name. Eventually it turned out we're not related but i still kept contact with this man.
Genealogy is a very fascinating topic.
Amazing the variety of topics you cover
Just a compliment for the wide range of topics this year.
Great videos. I’m a “Miller”. My first German-American ancestor, Hermann Mueller, emigrated to the Germanna Colony in Virginia from Freudenberg, a little town in NRW Germany. This was pre-Revolutionary War. Hermann Mueller soon became Harmon Miller. I’d like to visit Freudenberg one day, it looks cozy.
I had no idea that name changes were imagined to have mostly happened at Ellis Island. My mother's German-American ancestors anglicized their last name (by one letter) during WWI, after having used the original version for at least a generation in the US.
Hello Ashton,
happy Sunday!
Really interesting topic and well researched as usual.
best regards
Ralf
Hi Ralf! Happy Sunday to you too!! It's so interesting how pervasive this assumption is about Ellis Island. All of our family that we have told about it were all super surprised. Very much an urban legend.
In Finland surname became a legal requirement 1920, which is also when wife and husband were required to share the husband's surname for the first time. Before that there were different traditions in different parts of the country: in the east family names were used already in 1500's and in the west patronymics were enhanced with farm names which changed with a move. Some of the farm names or otherwise adopted familynames were in Swedish and when Finnish became a more powerful language (it had always been tha majority language) by the end of 1800's the family names were translated to Finnish or new ones adopted. This all is often difficult to understand for new genealogists, who think that current name conventions are "traditional".
Belgian culture is different: Women carry on their name after marriage. And we had to explain this to swiss authorities when we married here, because under Swiss law, my wife would have lost her name at the time we got married.
I find it more respectful to keep surnames intact after marriage.
Speaking of adopting farm names, this was a common practice in northern Germany as well. The Prussians then required the husband's name to be used, but people stayed with their traditional practices for long and created confusing "Nenn-Namen" like "Müller genannt Meier". So if you encounter a Bertha Müller, genannt Meier, geborene Schmidt among your ancestors, you know things get really complicated 🙂
@@ppd3bw this was , and partially is, still the case not only in the North of Germany.
Farm names or House names are still used in other more rural parts of the country.
It is not a registered or official name anymore, but everyone uses it, and even your mail with it in your address will be delivered correctly.
So you are gonna be called after the name the house has, in which you are living.
If you move elsewhere, you lose that name and will be called by your family name again.
I think that is where the thesaurus "Hausname" for "Familienname" or "Nachname" derives from.
Your videos are always so great and interesting! ;-)
🎊50k! Glückwunsch!😃
You also have to remember that family names were still sort of fluent in many European countries in the 19th century and often changed slightly from generation to generation (and sometimes even between siblings), exchanging letters, dropping or adding them, or even change parts of the name. Family names in Germany were formally fixed from 1875, but there was still scope for changes, especially in situations where documents weren't checked properly.
So many people would give the variation of the name they themselves were using at the time they were emigrating, which wasn't necessarily the same as the rest of their families.
My grandmother once showed me a box of family documents, and among them was what was probably my great-grandfather's birth certificate from the 1870s which showed the new name which I still have today and included the old name (which had the same first part/syllable, but a different second one) in brackets.
In the paternal side of my family, the surname was sometimes spelled with "double a" and often not.
According to the family tree, even people from the neighboring town with "doppel a" married into the family without "doppel a".
Thanks, Ashton, for another informative video debunking certain myths that even I believed in (the supposed failures or even malicious intent of officials changing names). It's a good thing to have your own beliefs challenged regularly, and when found failing, to administer the necessary changes. Thank you for that opportunity.
BTW: German from Hamburg here. In the mid to late 19th century my distant relatives who later settled in the Chicago area, and opened a German style bakery there, definitely left via Hamburg and entered via Ellis Island. They left in three waves each roughly ten years apart, bringing in more and more of the 'clan' from both southern Germany in Baden, as well as from Thüringen/Thuringia. Revealing their name shouldn't be a problem, as it was a fairly common name both back then and now: Spitz.
My uncle and his wife nearly one century later, still took a ship in the early 1960's as it was a much more affordable transfer. They emmigrated with their toddler son, and the second on the way. They however entered not through Ellis Island, but went ashore in California. In both cases the family names were perfectly retained, even though my uncle's last name is as difficult to spell as it is to pronounce. My family name is so rare however that revealing it is going to reveal one of only three extended branches of the family still extant in Germany, and only ONE family in California, AFAIK which gives a bit too much info.
A little spicy side-note: what I can reveal however is that I would have a very standard German name if my Great-great-great-grandmother hadn't committed the ultimate sin of having TWO illegitimate children in the late 19th century, from two different fathers nonetheless. If the second man hadn't taken her as a wife after the fact, and given her his name, I would have gotten the Allerweltsname / common name of Müller. Not dissing all the Müllers out there; it's just so common as everyone needed that craft to survive and most last names evolved from the crafts learned.
The emigration from Hamburg is actually shown and documented in the Ballinstadt Auswanderermuseum in the Hamburg harbour, where parents of the old emigration terminals are now the location of the museum. It underscores your talking points and shines a light on the whole process the emigrants from Germany and Eastern Europe had to go through before getting on the ships.
I just looked up the most popular boys' names in the US and Germany.
And the similarities are really shocking.
The top 10 in both countries are pretty similar. Shows how globalized we have really become.
Noah, Metteo, Leo/Leon, Liam, Elijah/Elias are on both lists.
(Same with girls' names: Emma, Mia, Sophia, Lina/Luna are top 10 in both countries).
And that is exactly why I won't give my children names easy to translate into English. It's just the death of our cultural names
@@EinDeutscherPatriot620 nennst du sie dann Siegfried und Brünhild?
@@olivenkranz Siegfried ist mein zweiter Vorname, ha! Ich heiße Jürgen Siegfried von Schumacher. Mein Sohn wird Widukind Liudulf von Schumacher oder Diederik Freerk von Schumacher heißen. Ich bin Sächse, also möchte ich, dass sie sächsische Namen haben. Für meine Tochter entweder Brünnhilfe oder Brünnhilde Antje von Schumacher.
@@EinDeutscherPatriot620 Wenn du möchtest, dass sie in der Schule gemobbt werden, dann nur zu.
@@scofield321 Ja, werde ich. Wenn sie unkultiviert sein und kein Verständnis haben wollen, müssen sie das schaffen.
Our family name was probably spelled and pronunced a bit different in the 1600s when my first German ancestor arrived in Sweden. This is clearly visible today, as different branches of the family spells the name differently depending on what country they went to. Kolthoff, Kalthoff, Kultenhof, Koltoft, etc. They all seem to have common origin. In my experience, the name we have today sounds foreign both to Swedes and Germans 😅
Kolt ist Plattdeutsch bzw. Niederdeutsch und bedeutet Kalt.
@@jinsvunsolved thank you! I didn't know this before.
I love how informative your films are!
I am an expat tollin Germany as well. Though, as my homeland is its neighbour and through the history we were (unwillingly) under the influence of german culture, I hadn't such a culture shock when moving to Germany as you did. I even spoke the language fluently since learning it at school.
Still, my son got a name without typically polish letters, quite common in Germany and known for Poles.
Deutschland ... dichter bei den Polen!
=
Germany ... closer to the Poles!
My grandmother came in through Ellis Island, but my grandfather came through (I think) Baltimore. Your video gave me a lot of ideas on how to research their journeys. My grandmother came from what is now Slovakia and left from Hamburg. My grandfather came from what is now Western Ukraine but what was then part of Poland. His immigration passage is somewhat harder to find.
As always, absolutely well researched and presented. One notices that you come from an academic environment, Dr. Ashton :-). I look forward to your contributions every Sunday over a cup of coffee, especially the historical ones.
Perhaps you could follow this up with articles on famous German-American entrepreneurs and how they helped shape the country, or the German emigrants and their role in the Civil War (there were a lot of them), as well as in the later army. Also interesting are the artists who helped shape Hollywood, among other things. From Rockefeller, Boing, Studebaker, Steinway etc. to Nimitz, Custer, Eisenhower to Elvis Pressler, Doris Day. Marx Brothers. It would also be interesting to know how they fared and what problems they had and what successes they had. Since they were either Catholic or Protestant, they quickly married other nationalities, such as the Irish (Grace Kelly). As they were more down-to-earth, they also tended to pursue their profession rather than, for example, panning for gold on the goldfields themselves (butcher, hotel, baker, general shop, etc.).
Maybe you'd like to look into it (I know it's a lot of work :-), but I'm sure it would be interesting), but it would be in good hands with you - for sure.
A very enjoyable video. I too had heard the myth and so glad you cleared that up.
My father's family name has different spellings within the same country (Netherlands) because of who wrote the name at time of registry or baptism. Some have h, some left off the "de" part.
So...guessing names you might have chosen ( BTW; we did the same when expecting a child, trying to find one that would fit in 3 languages!) Tobias, Elias, Martin, Peter, Thomas, Michael, (
Michael is a good guess - a) because that's also my name ;P b) its a common name across most (all?) christian languages
The background music of todays intro was pretty fancy.
Thanks for the research!
I think we even got taught in English class in Germany that names of immigrants were changed on Ellis island. 🤷♂️
My guess regarding the name is Max.
Max is a great name... BUT the kid across the street has it and we were afraid it might be a touch too confusing. 😉
It's still not uncommon that people are called the "local" variant of your name. A man called Charles would be called Carlo in Italy or Karl in Germany. I am Marie in French speaking regions, Mary in English countries and Maria everywhere else. I even introduce myself according to the language of the people I meet. It's the same name.
Back in the days when there weren't many 'exotic' names it was normal. Kings, Queens, Popes where called differently. Papa Giovanni Paolo, Johannes Paul, Juan Pablo, John Paul, Jean-Paul, Jan Pawel.... Jeanne d'Arc, Giovanna d'Arco, Joan of Arc, Johanna von Arc....
My wife is from Ecuador…she was given a French name at birth (Jacqueline)… (no, her parents weren’t French)…
Or, as Peter Lorre said in Beat The Devil, O'Hara was a common name among Germans emigrating to Argentina after the war.
Sometimes people changed their name for political or reasons.
So true. I am engaged in genealogy and have found passenger lists from Bremerhaven (part of the family emigrated to the USA in 1923, first via New York to Nebraska and then 9 years later to Iowa) - and there I have found many spelling mistakes, but actually by the responsible persons of the shipping company. Our village is called "Flachsmeer" (I also grew up there) and was written down "Flaxmeir" or something like that, the officials on Ellis Island really couldn't do anything for that.
Very interisting😊
My parents did a lot of genealogy research in the 80s and 90s but back then had no way really to trace the family of my maternal grandfather. He was from a German family who lived in the Croatian/Hungarian border area and came to Germany during WWII with no paperwork at all. For a long time, we only knew the names of my great-grandparents but nothing else. No dates, no exact location, nothing. Through some interviews with my mother before she died and thanks to digitalisation of Hungarian and Croatian church records, I was now able to trace back a further 4 generations...with the help of Google translate since I don't speak Hungarian. My grandfather's last name as he spelled it was Geiss...but I've also found Geisz and Gaisz, depending on who did the entry into the church records. Since my ancestors were farmers and simple workers, most of them probably couldn't read or write and the officials just spelled the names as they thought they were spelled. And first names also vary...it makes it very hard to find someone but also very rewarding when you actually do and can connect dots that seemed completely out of your reach before.
Great video; very informative! My family immigrated to the US c.1870 and apparently the spelling of our last name was very fluid. Based on tombstones in the church graveyard where many of my ancestors are buried, my great-great grandmother maintained the German spelling (Göring), my great-grandfather used the spelling my branch of the family uses to this day (Gehring), but his brother used another variation (Goering). Two family legends have persisted as to why the changes: 1. It happened at immigration (at the New Orleans port of immigration rather than Ellis Island) and 2. There were so many Görings that immigrated at the same time that it was to avoid confusion with the mail. Neither now seems likely and the real reason will likely never be known.
I obviously cannot tell you the real reason but I can tell you this: If there is no letter ö available, Germans will substitute it with oe, so that is where that variation comes from.
Just be happy they changed it, or you would be named like one of the most famous Nazis
My mother’s father came to the US from Germany in the early 1900’s through Baltimore. Somewhere along the line, he was asked what his name was. His name was Anthony, which he pronounced in his German dialect as “Antony.” When he arrived in the US, his official first name and middle initial had become “Anton E.”
Anton is a male name in Germany, Anthony not
Anthony or Antony are not used in German, in general words or letters with „y“ are extremely rare. Usually „y“ would be replaced with „ie“ or „i“ or left out completely.
The German version of this name is Anton. You might have mixed something up, either his name was always Anton or they changed it into Anthony when he moved to the US.
When I moved to the United States around 1984 at the age of 24, I was tempted to change at least my last name. Over time I realized that most people just use my first name anyway because my last name is too hard to figure out.
In the early years most people initially mis-pronounced my first name. It seems that in recent years most people are able to pronounce “Claus” properly without prompting them. I am quite happy now to not have changed any of my names.
Woher kommen Sie aus? Ich bin in den USA geboren, aber ich bin Deutscher Amerikaner 😂
When my uncle moved to northern Norway he found it curious that the phone book in his town had a number of Armstrong’s when he expected to be the only one.
It turned out some Norwegian migrants to the states had taken on an anglicised version of their name (eg Amundson or Arnesen) but when some of the family returned to Norway they ended up keeping Armstrong.
My name is impossible to pronounce for foreign people. Especially when coming from a country with a non-latin based language. My real name is "Ulrike". I´m so used to my asian colleagues calling me something like "Uhik" or "Uchik". XD My last name also doesn´t help much so they just stick trying to pronounce my first name. My parents definitly didn´t think of giving us names that can be translated well. They were born and raised in the same village as generations before them and my siblings and I were the first to move away. So we all were given old german names. I sometimes think of getting a nickname like a lot of asians do when moving to a foreign country. (They often just call themselves "Sally" or something easy pronouncable like that.) But I really like my name and my "real" nickname is "Ulle" which is a little bit easier to say for english speaking people but still kind of impossible for asians.
I'm an amateur genealogist since age 20 (I'm 65 now) and how you've described the name situation for immigrants is exactly right in every detail.
That said, a few things to add.
When I was a little girl, the old people (my grandparents' age and older) would get together at family gatherings and tell all of us little kids that our family name back in the old country (what is now Germany) would have been our name with "von" in front of it. And then they'd laugh and laugh. We kids ate that stuff up and you'll still find people swearing that the story is true. It's a joke, folks. They were pulling our legs. Adding the von in front of a name is a way that the nobility was identified. My people were many things, but they were not nobility, and your people probably weren't, either.
There was no such thing as standardized spelling until very, very recently, so your ancestor's name was spelled many different ways by many different people. Essentially, whichever way they thought it should be spelled, based on their maybe imperfect hearing, their own experience or inexperience with the name before, you name it.
Old German handwriting is really difficult to read. It's cursive handwriting, but a lot of the rules for how letters were formed are completely different than they are today. And some people's handwriting was clear and precise and other people's handwriting was a mess.
I'm sure plenty of the name changes happened just sort of accidentally.
My father came from Eastprussia. In Villingen he meet my mother. She was the leader of the "Gewerkschaftsjugend" (youth of the labor union) and he was the leader of the "Flüchtlingsjugend" (jouth of the refugees) both youth groups made many things together. There they get known each other.
My acestors came from Eastprussia and from Baden (Black Forest)
My family tree is complete for 5 generations, thanks to my grandmother who take maryage certificates from her parents and her parents in law with on her escape from Pillau.
From my mothers Side the oldest was born in 1777 and I also know the names of his parents
Why are you proud for knowing your family tree?
@@BlueberryDragon13 Why Not?
Nice work Ashton! Thank you for your effort.
By the way, my suggestion would be: Alexander.😉
Love that name, but Jonathan felt it was too long (he has a long first, middle, and last name and so he tends to like short monikers).
@@TypeAshton i am disappointed ;-) (German namend Alexander here :-))
@@TypeAshton Well, skip the middle name...never ever used mine. (Except for marriage)
Some local German radio stations - i am thinking of SWR 1 - got linguistic name experts to regularly explain the heritage of a person's name to the audience. Where the family probably comes from and especially what the family name probably meant in the past. Not for immigrants especially, but for all names that are not just commonly describing jobs or habits.
German orthography got standardized just after 1850. So last names before that could be spelled differently, even in the same family, in the same place, depending on the person who was writing the (church) birth register.
As a Stuttgarter, I would LOVE it to see you three visit the City of Stuttgart. You´ve already been to the Residenzschloss Ludwigsburg :D Stuttgart isn´t that far from Ludwigsburg tho :D
Names and identifiers: You could do a deeper dive into how we received our family names, or names in general. In Europe of course, or the Germanic POV. Not just from an American POV, omgepot/repotted - immigrant and relocated.
The practice of names and family legacy/names goes far back in time. Jack's son - Jackson, or Erikson, Leif to make a link with Greenland and Newfoundland.
Or name giving - traditions to re-use names of family members, or not.
For me personally my parents named me David Daniël,
David in the English pronunciation not the Dutch/Germanic way. As a teen my mother heard the English pronunciation and decided she like the name. I personally also like my name better in English - Dutch feels different to me.
During my theology study we talked about names and how we feel a deep personal connection with our names, and when we hear it.
Maybe it's less intense for some, because my name was not that uncommon, hearing David would not make me go immediately; that's me.
Put on a TV show, or even in literature - David is not uncommon.
In my teen years I even got teased because my name was David S and there was this book: De moeder van David S. Written by a mother about her son who was battling drug addiction.
I now days often joke around every time my name comes up in a show, or something.
My partner is called Joran, every time I tell people his name, or he does, they go; like Joran van der Sloot.
Kind of the reverse of this.
For my second name I personally write it Daniel, not the official [French writing style].
Also because why I got that name, the people in the office house just went for the French more common writing style which made that the official way of writing my second name.
My uncle had a similar mistake with a cousin of mine. My aunt told him it was Suzanne - but it now officially is Suzane, because as he went down/in to have the names registered he didn't notice. Or maybe he did, my aunt wanted to name her first son Alexander and thought the second name would be Roger, come to find out it became Roger Alexander, my uncle preferred Roger and he went in to register the names.
But Daffy, Taffy are also twists on the name David. And so are Dawood, Dawud, Davit, Dave, etc.
People always ask me what my name is. I always tell them my English pronunciation, they mostly call me by the Dutch pronunciation. Guess because they and I are Dutch, its second nature.
In school they taught me to write phonetic first... so at home I got into a fight on how my name was written.
In school they taught me Deevit. My mother corrected this to David, and had to get out the official documents to prove to me this was how my name was written as a 6 y/o. Because why would school teach me to write Deevit.
My father and mother had Catholic traditions with their names;
my father has 3 doopnamen, baptism names. Maria is one of them, even if he is male.
My mother has 2 baptism names, her first name she adapted to Maria because American LDS church members could not deal with Marije, I hope I remember correctly - growing up I wasn't allowed to call my parents by their names and Maria became second nature to me.
Her second name is feminized male name Joseph, Josepha.
My family name for me for a long time was a mystery what it meant, where it came from.
And I grew up LDS - that is very high on genealogy.
It wasn't until I met a wise man in the LGBTI+ community it finally made sense, as he explained the roots and meaning of my Surname.
Schiffelers.
I do know from the American LDS members (military) that my Family name in the USA might be changed to a name that would have been easier to deal with for non Germanic languages. But also altering the "meaning" of the name.
Adam Schiff... might very well be related to me in some way or form.
And for a very long time I assumed my surname was also in the linguistic root of the German word Schiff - Schip.
But we could never really figure out what the elers part would be.
My surname is not uncommon but also not common. There are streets and places that carry the name as well.
Like Schiffelerhof where my fathers family came from. So it never made full sence. Not at a river or sea -
I feel connected to the location where my fore fathers also lived and were born and died.
But I am more than just my family name on my fathers side. I am a mixed bag of relations in history and families and this location as well as others.
Schiffelers: Schoffelen en Schoffelaar - that is part where I had to go in what my name represents.
Schiffelen, and Schiffelers for a person that did this.
It is schoffelen/harken with a twist, you weed/rake/hoe(ing) the soil, but you leave the weed on the ground and you burn it controlled which makes the soil more fertile again. So it has noting to do with a ship, nothing at all. And makes all the sense with Schiffelerhof, farming.
Schiffelen was a skill, you didn't want to burn down the village, surrounding nature and stuff - the farm.
As a kid I had no connection to my name, and didn't like it - now I find it very suitable, and carry it with pride.
There also is a difference in pronunciation in my native dialect, which made it sound more like the ship connection was there.
And the Dutch way of pronunciation which makes the connection with schoffelen more notable, once I knew it.
If my mother said my full name in Dutch; I knew I was in trouble, granted or not.
Some how my mother also always called me lovingly Davina - embarrassing as this was in my teens, how suitable and ironic it also was...
As a gay man I now fondly remember my mother calling me this, without realizing how fitting it would be. If I ever had a need for a drag name Davina would be it, and I would be a diva.
In plenty of cases our names root us to the locations we are born, or from.
My cousins are Bangerter - the meaning is baumgarten and goes to Switzerland if not mistaken. Bangerter can be found there on street signs etc.
This is my 20 cents because its too much to be 2 cents.
13:12 - I knew it! (but Theo _is_ a nice name - your little deity 😀)
Wow, thats very interesting. Regarding my own family name, I'm obviously lucky that one of my anchestors did a research and probably spent a good amount of money to trace my family back with birthdays back to the early 18. century (1717) and one generation even earlier where they just have the names and their wedding date. While I have a family name which is rare about how it's written, it is easy to pronounce correctly in German when reading. However not so much, when an english speaker reads it. When I was a kid, my grandpa told me on several occations that to his knowledge all people with the exact writing of my family name are relatives. Although not being that much into geneanology I recently did a research on it and found my family name to be listed mostly in Germany (338 times), the USA (11 times) and in the Netherlands, UK and France (2 times each). However besides to my dad's brothers family and my own parents and grandparents, I didn't have any contact to any of them. But it's fun to see that there are people living in the US which share my family's name even more because it's somehow difficult to pronounce in English.
this is so interesting. the same happened in my region. i come from the ruhr area (Ruhrgebiet), which was created around 100-150 years ago by immigrants from poland. my parents still remember that the old people all spoke polish. the surnames here are almost all modified from polish, such as Lewandowski, Sokolowski or Wachowski.
LOL, and i thought my "it feels like every 4th surname ends in -ski" goes too far.
Not to forget Lukas Podolski !
@@gluteusmaximus1657 hahaha yes
In fact the idea that a name is something set in stone is pretty new. Adapting it to another language was common. Queen Marie- Antoinette of France for example was christened " Maria Antonia". They thought of a name as a word like any other to be translated when confronted with a foreign language.
My grandmother was born Müller and there are actually also variations of writing this name here over the border, like MIller or Miler. We also wanted our kids to have international names, but somehow our son ended up being Jiří. That would be one of the most difficult names for foreigners, but it's technically George in English, or often just "Jerry".
Were the German spelling of *Georg* in my region of Germany has been influenced by the time it was occupied by the French.
So my uncle was named "Schorsch".
@@agn855 : With exeption of ,Erdbeerschorsch' ( Erzbischof in a joke) the name Georg is in southern Germany mostly spoken ,Schorsch'
Da gibt es noch mehr Varianten Joschi oder auch Girgl
I was not aware, that it was a common assumption about name changes, that they happened during registration at immigration. I would have assumed that changing your name is always a big decision just as the decision to live in another country, so you would have made it with consideration, often when really understanding the impact that a name change could have within the new environment you are trying to settle, but also when you already have started to learn the language of your new country and when you have started to better understand what kind of name change would be appropriate. So I would have assumed that a name change would often happen later with the first born generation than with the last foreign born generation. Interesting to see, that there are still many other ways or reasons.
Yes, and here in Sweden that was always the assumption about our immigrants. Svensson changed themselves to Swanson not by any clerical error, that is a very prevalent view of it here.
Or in the case of my relatives that moved (almost all of my grandfathers siblings did while he and his twin brother inherited the farm in Sweden and stayed) they just cut away one s and become Anderson.
There is this scene in An American Tail in which "Tanja" is changed to "Tilly" by the immigration officers, but since the familiy is using their own names after it, I always found the notion a little bit strange. It is also the only instance I heard about this myth, but then, I am not from the US.
Not everyone considers changing their family name quite as earnestly as one might think. A friend of mine was born in the Middle East, but when he was young his family relocated to the U.S. to avoid the ravages of war. Over a quarter of a century later when he was made a naturalized citizen, the official asked him if he would like to change his name at this time. After considering this option for just a moment, he responded, Clark Kent.
In my Job in Germany i have a lot to do with people of Russian ancestry, they sometimes have 3 different documents with 3 different spellings of their name, Eugen and Ewgeni or Wladimir and Waldemar are the same names for example. The end of a name like Vitali or Sergei can be y i or ij for example. x can be ks, simply because some letters don't exist in the German or Russian alphabet cyrillic has extra letters for the tsch and ch sound for example which would be probably a j and k sound in englisch.
Same ... you do not accidentally deal with Spätaussiedler?
The official Latin spelling of my first name changed from Andrey to Andrei over the course of time because the Russian foreign ministry adopted new latinization rules at some point. I wonder how more complex names have changed.
Those aren't Russian, those are Germans that got russified in the Soviet Union, they have German ancestry.
@@andbelov the Bolsheviks changed almost the whole Cyrillic Alphabet. A lot of diphthongs disappeared and even their letters for.
@@SchmulKrieger what kind of diphtongs are you talking about? The Russian spelling reform abolished the letters i, ѣ and ѳ, which were replaced by и, е and ф, respectively. Also some spelling rules were changed, and that was it.
My last name--Gole--used to have an umlaut, which was dropped when my grandfather arrived in Canada and later moved to the USA. He spoke German in Canada and didn't learn English well until he was 16-17 years old. I wonder how the name was pronounced? There was probably a lot of code-switching back and forth on its pronunciation. He grew up in Canada before the First World War. Lots of interesting history here and there. Thanks for all your explorations!
I highly recommend visiting the immigration museum on Ellis Island, NY, USA. It is fabulous! I am looking forward to go the emigration museum in Bremerhaven, Germany.
I'm also doing genealogy at the moment and have traced some branches of my family back to the late 17th century. There's one name that went back and forth from "Anibas" to "Onibas" to "Ohnewas" due to changes in Austrian dialect and the more or less educated guesses of literate officials. Another name on my husband's side of the family, on the Hungarian border, changed several times as it was sometimes written in German and sometimes in Hungarian.
And that same name was *actually* changed (drumroll...) on Ellis Island! It was written correctly but sloppily on the passenger list of some relatives who emigrated to America, and the first time their names were taken down in the US they were wrongly transcribed from that list (someone mistook a sloppy lowercase y for an a), and they only went back to the original spelling in the second census they underwent in the US. They kept the "wrong" spelling for about 10 years.
Hello Nobleones.
You had me thinking I was listening to the Metatron.
Peter ?
Beautiful video BTW!
Even within Germany there were changes made to family names. I had ancestors from East Prussia named Jokajty which became Jekat at some point. Even the Jokajty was a polonization of an earlier Lithuanian version.
So many people, inside germany no less, get my last name wrong, so many times, despite it sounding very german, it jast happens to be a very rare variation of a way more wlel known last name...
It is still quite the hassle sometimes when speaking with officials.
I come from the Lower Rhine Area Germany where so many names have a strange writings! Like Straelen, Nieukerk, Brouwers, Baesdonk (spoken: Strahlen, Neukerk, Brauers, Baaßdong). When I was a child (50 years ago) many people still stoke the Dutch sounding dialects!
This is a great job debunking the myth.
One of my recent immigrant families waited over a decade to alter their name. My great grandfather's brother chose a different variation.
Having native speakers writing in immigration records, and ship manifests is great, but can be a problem for indexers. I was never too concerned about the immigration records for my recent immigrant ancestors, because I know where they came from, but still wanted the records. I could never find one set of great grandparents, until I got obsessed one day. I narrowed down the conflicting reports of the date they immigrated, and finally found them in indexes with one, and/or both names misspelled for everyone. The indexer was not familiar with German handwriting. Three given names were abbreviated, my great grandmother's abbreviated name was indexed as a man, even though it says wife, and the first letter of their surname was misread. The manifest is tattered, but not difficult to read. I'm lucky I found them, and glad someone indexed them, because they got just enough right, it caught my attention.
My Great-Great-Grandfather, with french Hugenotte ancestry actually germanized my mother's maiden name, because 19th century Eastern Frisians, had trouble to pronounce "Voisin" to "Wosing".
*First edit: Eastern Frisians
Second edit: After Eastern Frisia had been a French department in the napoleonic era, plus being part of Prussia afterwards, anti french sentiments, have been very pronounced at the time of the name change. Now when I think of it, that might have been an even bigger factor for the name change. For all I know, it had been voluntary nonetheless.
Hugenottes had several immigration waves, starting around 1550. They often changed their name by simply translating (french berger became Schäfer) or just pronouncing the name in a German way. So quite a bunch of "Berger" in Germany are in fact frz. berger = Schäfer. But in recent centuries they often kept their names including French accents, like the quite common surname "André".
It is also common to alter the foreign names just a bit to make it "German", not only with French names. The common surnames Bak, Bonk, Bunk eg. are all variants of the original Eastern European name spelled "Bąk". German register offices (Standesamt) often changed the names to what they understood or omitted letters, like Czech name Szyszka became Szyska, Syska, Liskar(!), etc. You sometimes need quite some creativity to get the right name..
Hello, fellow Huguenot!
I find the history of the Huguenots extremely exciting but also very dramatic.
And although "only" about 40,000 Huguenots fled from France to "Germany" (more precisely: to one of the many German territories), they still left clearly recognizable traces in German history. Especially in Prussia and Berlin. Learning a little more about the Huguenots is definitely worthwhile for any history buff.
@@bragiboddason4304 They went to the places that offered freedom of religion - or at least some kind of acceptance towards different christian varieties. Those were Preußen (Prussia), Hessen (Hesse) and Kurpfalz (Palatinate). Latter became later catholic again and the then catholic rulers enforced a counter-reformation, esp. after the Nine Years' War. So many religious refugees moved on, either to America or to northern parts of Germany. And this kept on quite for a time, so immigrants from the Palatinate area are a quite distinctive German group in the US, eg. many Amish people still speak Pennsylvania Dutch, which is more or less just the dialect of the southern Kurpfalz. Many of them may have huguenotish roots, but also Calvinistic, German Lutheran or other protestant origins. Those areas were quite a European melting pot with refugees from many then catholic countries (Austria, Spain, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Bohemia, ..)
The word Hugenotte is a German one and means Eidgenosse nowadays.
When my French ancesters emigrated to the US 200 years ago (1823), they kept their name and we still do. In the US there are quite a few people using this name but here in Germany, to my knowledge, there are only 4 of us - myself, my wife, our son and his wife. Our namesake valley in France is still there, just no one with our name. Germans are often a bit confused at first when confronted with an American with a French name. 🙄
My paternal grandmother’s family emigrated from Sweden in the late 19th century. Their name was „Elge“ or „Moose“ in Swedish. It was changed to „Johnson“ - according to family legend it was a forced change since the official couldn’t cope with „Elge“. How true that is, is very debatable as you talked about. At any rate we have „Moose“ relatives in Sweden and „Johnson“ relatives in Wyoming.
Thanks for your videos! Always a treat!
Cheers, Doc.
Liam is the only boy's name on the 2023 list for both the US and Germany.
My mother's family's name (which is a Germanic name) gets confusing not so much because there are a few variations of the spelling but because different variations of the spelling were used for people in the same family even though different families used different variations as the "correct" spelling.
Leon?
The last names of your family are sooo familiar to me. Oltmanns, Haferkamp and Behrends are very common in my area.
My last name is Schaffert. My grand dad did a good job tracing back our ancestors. They were all located in Berlin, Brandenburg and Posnan (Posen) and the name is south German and we have no clue how it got to east Germany and Poland. Now, we live in the north west, my dad came here due to his job.
I think it will be Ben or Noah.
@@spitymaeh
well, Benjamin popped up in my mind, so it could be Ben or Benny :)
@@sindbad8411 Very good guess! In fact - his name was ALMOST Ben/Benny. My grandfather on my mother's side was named "Bennie" and Jonathan really liked how "Jack and Ben" went together. The only hang-up is that we had already decided to give this little one my dad's name as his middle-name (which is Jerry).... which means that his name would be "Ben Jerry". 🤣🤣
My corner of the US we have Schroeder.
It's pronounced either "shray-der" or "shrow-der". They swear the 2 family lines are not related. Schroeder-Schroeder wedding announcements in the paper look weird.
@@TypeAshton
Juhu, a reply :)
Thanks for all you are doing, just love it.
We definitely need more of the American open, friendly and optimistic way of looking at life.
Keep going, please!
My maternal grandfather was born Karl Rudolph “Rudy” Angermann in Dresden. He immigrated to the US in 1922 through Ellis Island. He changed is name to Rex Anger when becoming a naturalized US citizen.
One part of my family that emigrated to America changed its name from Hörmann to Herman.... sounds almost the same! ;-)
But this was already in the 1920s, so we always hold contact with them until the 1990s!
Hello Asthon
May is coming and first of Mai. For most people germany a nuce extra holyday. But this day based of American history and the city of Chicago. Will be a interessting historic view on US and Europe
There is a few changes in my family history from my ancestors that immigrated. On my father's side, his maternal grandfather name in Sweden was Andersson but after coming to the US was changed to Palm. And his paternal grandfathers name is not that hard to figure out on the change. His name was Nilsson and changed to Nelson. On my mothers side, from her fathers side of the family changed the name from Philippe to Philippi. But the others kept it the same. My grandmothers family came from Ireland so no change was necesary.
Choosing a name certainly is an important discussion and decision.
My family is German and Syrian, my extended family includes England, the US, and Canada too.
When my parents discussed my name, my father got some flak for insisting on an Arabic one.
I embrace my Arabic surname, but understand why my mother and uncle were opposed to it and ask me if I wanted to change it during or after my university years.
Hello Asthon
Nice video about name history. The are a lot of changes in germany and polska to. Remember on Melcom X and the history of the Famely names of afro americans or indian peoplele.
Will interessting to.
Thx
It happened over here in Europe, too. My great-grandfather and his two brothers bore three different spellings of the same family name. It was not until one branch had died out, as it were, that my grandfather legally changed his last name.
Your ancestor's maiden name Antje Behrends is similar to my maiden name. Unfortunately, I don't know much of that side of the family, except they originally came from the Flensburg area in Northern Germany.
My mom was from Germany arriving in the US in 1963--not even with the intent to immigrate but she met my dad. Her name was Irmtraut but due to pronunciation trouble generally went by Suzie.
I have the surname Geldmacher in my family tree…later generations had changed it to moneymaker, the same with Schweitzer and Swisher in my tree.
Interetsing, the base assumption isn't a change for pronunciation reasons? Heck, a friend of mine with a Polish-sounding name (in a region of Germany where it feels like every 4th surname ends in -ski) considered changing his surname because so many people were unable to spell it. (The street he lived in didn't help there)
We were stationed in Hanau from 72 to 96. Best years of my life. Childhood was amazing. In Erlensee there is a sign on a building advertising rooms for rent. The family name is Fucker. So many Americans took pictures of it because they thought it was so funny. They also thought that poor Germans lived in the garden houses.
That happened a lot with other immigrant nationalities too. For instance, a lot of American and Canadian "Perry" citzens are descendants from Portuguese immigrants whom last name was "Pereira" and have anglicized that last name to facilitate the pronunciation of it by english-speaking people...
I am from Austria and in my family history there are a few instances of people who immigrated to Austria from Czechia and sometimes their names were "germanized" over the generations, especially in terms of spelling. For example the name "Lukeš" later became "Lukesch". Or sometimes a "š" (pronounced like "sh" in English) was even dropped in the name's pronunciation and became a regular "s".
Max? Alex? Anton ? Thanks for another interesting video, Ashton !
I would presume a lot of it has to do with ease of pronunciation and spelling.
In my family, I also found a German ancestor who changed her name from Margaretha to Margaret / "Maggie" and a second who just changed a first letter: Katharine --> Catherine.
But very close with the guesses! No one has gotten it yet though. 😉😉
@@TypeAshton I'll keep trying ☺
hmm maybe benjamin ? this was a great video thank you.
I'm from a mixed Belarusian-Ukrainian family, and my name is written differently in the 3 languages of these countries.
So, the name I'd be using in English or Portuguese would be different depending on how we met. If it's professional connection, I'll use the name in the documents (that happens to be Belarusian). If we met through a hobby, there's high chance I'll be using Ukrainian one. And if a Russian speaker introduced me, I'd use the Russian version.
Names are SUCH an interesting thing. For us it is less about spelling and more variation with pronunciation. Jonathan, for example, never really corrects anyone if they pronounce his name the "German" way with more of a "y" sound at the beginning and when speaking German on the phone, usually mispronounces his name so it is easier for the person on the other end of the line.
Dad's side is German. A few generations removed. We had relatives in the civil war. It's a common German last name with many spellings Shultz, Schultz, Schulz etc.. Of course they're from Wisconsin too
This is where your name comes from, in case you didn't know already.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulthei%C3%9F
I saw that in the top ten list for boy's names in both countries, Theo(dore), Ben(jamin), Henry, and Noah were all present. Much more overlap between them than I thought there would be! Assuming the name would be spelled the exact same way between the lists, Henry or Noah are my guesses since the US had the long versions of Theo and Ben!
I think it is Noah :D
Henry ist Heinrich in Hochdeutsch
I'd be interested to find out more about the differences in how first names are chosen in the US and Germany. My father is American and was given his mother's family name (Cardon) as a first name. If people did that here in Switzerland, there would be some strange results. Let's say Mr Ochsenbein marries Ms Würmli. They could call their kid Würmli Ochsenbein, which translates as Little Worm Oxleg.
This happened a lot in the regions of Eastern Shore Maryland, and Tidewater Virginia. People named their children after their ancestors' surnames. They even gave daughters surnames as given names like Scarborough, and my 5th great grandmother was called Newton. She named her children Bowdoin, Littleton, Robins, and Sarah Newton.
My grandparents had a ton of kids. The older ones learned German but once they go into achool the family stressed speaking English. My mom was born in 41 so also not a great time to be speaking German in the US. Food was the culture that held on the best.
As always very well researched. World War II destroyed a lot in my family. My paternal grandparents were bombed out and evacuated, but the rest of the extended family was not. It wasn't until the mid-1950s that my grandparents moved back to my hometown. In the meantime, however, the family parts had become so alienated that contact was practically broken off. I never met my great-aunts and great-uncles.
Another harbour in Germany was the port of Cuxhaven. Today the place is still called “Amerika Hafen”
My great x 4 grandfathers name literally for Miller-fied. When from Johann Müller to John Miller. But he arrived waaaaay early, like the mid 1700’s.
I would put my bets on Noah. It was the first name which cae into my mind.
I've herad a lot of concerning stuff lately from the U.S. about abortion rights, gun laws, LGBTQ+ rights etc. I don't know if I just went down the rabbit hole or if it's really as bad as it sounds in some states. Would love an opinion on that :)
It's a shame that the name Peter is no longer modern. I love my name. 😉
Another great video! Thank you!
When I had French in school one of my classmates was named Steen, which means stone, just like Peter. Our teacher called him therefore Pierre. In Denmark Peter used to be a very common name until 1960 and I have personly know at least 10 with that name.
Ashton; My parents both came from Germany, pre-WW I; met and married in New York City. My father came from Neuendettelsau, the Nuernberg area; mother from Ottobeuren (Allau). My father's family name was BESENBECK. American's had difficulty pronouncing Besenbeck or spelling it, so being in business in New York City he finally changed his family name from BESENBECK and shortened it to BENNECK - legally. So I was a born Besenbeck, but with the legal name change became a Benneck. My Besenbeck cousins are all over the NEUENDETTELSAU / Nuernberg areas.
Genealogy searches become a can of worms thanks to the 30-year war between the Protestants and the Catholics. The Swedes became Protestants and invaded northern Germany and converted everyone to Protestantism. Their high water mark in Germany was just north of the Chiemsee.
Some Catholic priests took their flocks and kept them away from the Swedish Army. When the Swedish Army entered a village, and all the inhabitants had fled, they burnt the town. With all Birth, Marriage and Death Records kept by the Catholic Church, if the Church was burned, all records were gone as well.
In southern Bavaria, small children were still being admonished, "if you don't behave, we'll let the Swedes get you!"
In the 30-years War, the Catholic Church was fighting to defend their 100% hold and domination of the population (and their income there from) vs. the Protestants who were stealing their church-goers, and their sources for cash funds and wealth in the form of inherited land (give us your farm, in your Will, and we'll guarantee your entrance to Heaven....!)
See Catholic Church actions against the Cathers (Carcassonne) the Counter Reformation and the Inquisition. www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sxsrf=APwXEdfUmdlHVMbevL4qS-Md-xzd1DboNg:1682276179387&q=the+goal+of+the+catholic+church+counter+reformation+or+inquisition+was+to&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3mdiQ18D-AhVckWoFHT5JA68QkeECKAB6BAgFEAE
HAPAG-LLOYD was the major shipping company carrying emigrants (from many countries) from Hamburg / Bremen to New York. The President of the Company recognized he had a vast problem. People had to get to HAMBURG and be there for the ship departure times, which could entail days of waiting in Hamburg. Where can they stay? How can they get fed?
Albert Ballin, set up places where emigrating families could spend the days prior to departure; have a roof over their heads; food; and was a safe area. (See Ballinstadt-Hamburg)
Your grandparents most likely were on a HAPAG liner when they reached New York, and their names will be listed on the Ship Manifest.
Some of my ancestors who emigrated to America in the 19th century changed their last name from Engelbart to Angelbright.
It seems that there was a Reijndert Oltmans from Norden, who was employed with the worlds first multinational corporation, called VOC (Dutch East India Company) between 1780 and 1783 as a "bosschieter" a job title for an expierienced sailor and marine, operating the guns of the ship. Reijndert died on the end of 1783 on his second voyage between Capetown and todays Djakarta, Indonesia (at that time called Batavia).
My Italian Great-Grandfather was named Carlo Pescosolido at birth, and I grew up believing the myth that Ellis Island changed his name to Carl Pierce. Then I did a little genealogical research and discovered a number of inaccuracies, such as his place of immigration into the United States was Boston, not New York, and his name was unchanged in all the documents I could find from his immigration in 1906 and beyond, such as the ship's passenger manifest, census records for 1910, etc.
It was only in pursuing my own Italian citizenship that I discovered that he formally adopted the name Carl Pierce in 1920 when finally natualizing. Thank you for helping to dispell this persistent myth and paint a clearer picture of the roles and responsibilities of the workers who assisted immigrants to the U.S.
My father came to the USA when he was 17. Changed is sir name from Ockel to his stepfathers sir name Darnell. My mother's maiden name was spelled Pelzl, and somewhere along the way, it was charged Pelzel. I can find information on my mom's side of the family, but nothing on my father.
Hallo, so eine Namensänderung passierte nicht nur bei Immigration, auch bei normalen erstellen von Urkunden in Deutschland. In meiner Familie gibt es ein Ereignis, bei dem der Familienname meines Urgroßvaters geändert wurde, weil ein Standesbeamte ein "e" vergessen hat. Das wurde nicht mehr geändert, so dass der Zweig der Familie nun ohne ein "e" in der Mitte des Familiennamens weiter existiert.
Das ist normal. Standesämter gibt es erst seit rund 1870, vorher waren denkbare Urkunden nur die Kirchenbücher - und beileibe nicht jeder Pfarrer war der deutschen Sprache so mächtig wie notwenig.. Statt "Wegener" würde man da regelmäßig Wegner, Wagner, Wägner etc. finden, auch sind Verdoppelungen von Konsonanten üblich (Schäfer wird Schäffer). Und selbst später gibt es immer wieder Fehler bei Umlauten etc.
@@hermannschaefer4777 Nicht nur das. Lange gab es keine Schulpflicht, und selbst als es sie gab wurde sie oft nicht eingehalten, weil die Kinder im elterlichen Betrieb mitarbeiten mussten. Daher konnten viele Menschen nicht lesen und schreiben und wussten wahrscheinlich selber nicht wie man ihren Namen schreibt. Die sagten ihren Namen dann an verschiedenen Stellen, wo er aufgeschrieben wurde, und der, der ihn aufschrieb schieb ihn so wie er ihn verstanden hatte.
Sunday Morning 🖥 TBFF☕🥐 ❤