Many family names in Germany were Latinised under the influence of Renaissance Humanism by adding the suffixes ‑us or ‑ius (so-called Humanist names). These suffixes differ regarding their number of syllables and their impact on the prosody of the family name. The suffix ‑ius, when added to a family name consisting of at least two syllables, always leads to a shift of the accent (Cremér-ius), whereas this is not necessarily the case with ‑us (Móllerus / Mollérus). It appears that structures consisting of a disyllabic German family name and the suffix ‑ius are particularly frequent and that this suffix is often preceded by a nasal or a liquid. Clearly this pattern could also be applied if the underlying family name was monosyllabic. In this case a supplementary syllable was added such as ‑en or ‑el (Franck – Franck-én-ius). The suffix ‑us – apart from its use in patronymics (Arnold‑us) – was of little significance in the forming of Humanist names, however.

The article focuses on place names in the canton of Lucerne in Central Switzerland. It deals with the place-name elements -guet and -hof, the Swiss German appellatives Guet (‚piece of land, farm‘) and Hof (‚court, farm‘), and the phrase Hof und Guet. Based on the corpus compiled by the research project Luzerner Namenbuch it presents an analysis of their distribution. It is shown that both the names, the appellatives and its phrase are rare in the sources from the eastern area (the Rigi mountain region) compared to the western region of Entlebuch. The last part of the article focuses on the example of Källerhof, where it is shown how the context interacts with the name and how there may be different names for the same object through time.

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Following Slavic immigration in the 7th century a Slavic tribal region developed on the lower Zwickauer Mulde river in the area of Rochlitz, the city mentioned as urbs and burgwardus Rochelinzi by Thietmar von Merseburg between 1014 and 1018. The region included 52 settlements, most of which were on land between 61 und 71 ground control points, a few above that. Thirteen of these villages had a name with the suffix -(ov)ici, three had a name of the type Kosobudy/Žornosěky. These represent the oldest class of names and the centre of the area. The later place names, with the suffixes -jь, -in and -ov based on personal names, appear in the centre as well as on the outskirts, where a greater number of place names based on appellatives are found. Some names such as Zschauitz and Kralapp, along with many other place names between the Elbe and Saale rivers, have exact equivalents in Bohemia and Moravia. They provide evidence of the immigrants’ origin.

Minor names or microtoponyms are typically collected and analysed in etymological dictionaries. However, this may not be the most productive method in every case. More importantly, names should be analysed within the context of the communication community whose members created and used them. In rural settlements, these were primarily landowners. With the threefield crop rotation system (Dreifelderwirtschaft), which dominated agriculture in Central Europe from the Middle Ages until the 19th century, farmers had to be in constant discourse about the areas under cultivation, and this was not possible without using microtoponyms. For this reason, land users in each and every village established a special system of nomination within their local subdistrict. A detailed investigation of these names, taking account of this local perspective and considering the geographical, linguistic, sociolinguistic, ecological and historical context, identifies the specific reasons behind each individual nomination, which is very helpful in determining the meaning of more or less frequent name elements in general. Thus, only detailed studies of this kind provide a sound basis for various analyses – etymological, cognitive and others – of microtoponyms in general. This is demonstrated with the example of one local subdistrict, namely, a deserted village in a hilly and forested part of the countryside between Berlin and Leipzig. The minor names there have to be extracted from artificial nominations for land parcels, created for the purposes of land reallocation in the 19th century. The names were analysed and subsequently set in relation to the context suggested by different archival sources.

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This paper deals with place names ending in -leben which contain a single stem personal name as modifier with strong declension. A typological analysis shows both the distribution of name elements and regional differences between the main distribution areas Bode- and Unstrutkreis. This subtye of -leben names dominates in the Bodekreis but is less representative in the Unstrutkreis. The analysis is completed with a map.

Rare personal names in the Early Middle Ages. – Numerous Germanic personal names can only be evidenced a few times, some of them no more than once. The historical and geographic frames of reference for their respective classification as ‘rare’ are mainly the known inventory of Germanic names from the 4th until approximately the end of the 8th century within the Frankish territories east of the Rhine river as well as Gallo- and Italoromania. Obviously, there are various reasons for classifying a personal name as rare. The form of its tradition – perhaps accidentally and with great regional differences – certainly plays a role; but there is also a variety of linguistic and onomastic phenomena that could have greatly influenced the frequency of Germanic anthroponyms. They are criteria of both selection and limitation as well as new creativity. This article focuses on important features and mechanisms of name-giving, particularly regarding their potential for enabling names to remain rare.

The Merovingian Practice of Naming after Relatives: Family Traditions and Politics. – The name-giving habits in the Early Middle Ages are often connected with the traditions of a kin group. But the Merovingian example shows the importance of politics: During the course of its existence the Merovingian Frankish Kingdom was often separated into Teilreiche. Their kings were closely related which led to a claim to succeed one another. This is the context of the beginning of the Merovingian naming after relatives. Giving a name which was a popular part of the tradition of another Teilreich was a means to express one’s political claim on said kingdom. It is interesting that Clothar I – the weakest king of his generation – used this instrument most frequently. As did his son Chilperic I who at first also was at a disadvantage compared to his half-brothers. Chilperich even used the name Merowech which shows his ambition to rule the Gesamtreich, at least around Clothar’s I death in 561. Naming after a direct ancestor (especially after the grandfather) was comparatively seldom. Maybe because naming generally did not serve as stabilisation of a family tradition (as in later centuries) but current political concerns. In the 7th century the naming after direct ancestors or relatives prevailed.