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.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:75808 |
Date | 31 August 2021 |
Creators | Kroiß, Daniel |
Publisher | Deutsche Gesellschaft für Namenforschung |
Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
Language | German |
Detected Language | English |
Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
Relation | 0943-0849, urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa2-757887, qucosa:75788 |
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