Familiennamen deutscher Herkunft in der ostböhmischen Stadt Pardubitz

Abstract

German surnames are not uncommon in the Czech Republic. They bear witness to centuries of common history and mutual influence. The East Bohemian town of Pardubice, though not close to the border with Germany, also features such names. This article presents the results of a study conducted to determine how many surnames in this city can be regarded as being of German origin. Furthermore, reference is made to the peculiarity of the Czech system of names, which inflects surnames according to gender. This also applies to family names taken from German, which are often modified in their spelling. Names that have retained their German spelling include, for example, Müller and Wagner with their female variants Müllerová and Wagnerová. Other surnames such as Dydrych or Šyndlář have adopted the Czech spelling beyond Czech pronunciation and have also changed in their pronunciation. The typology of surnames commonly used in German onomastics is used in this article by assigning examples of names to the individual groups. In order to preserve the anonymity of those bearing the names, frequency information is only given for >10.