LL-L "Names" 2007.03.24 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L - 24 March 2007 - Volume 03

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From: Felix Hülsey <felix.huelsey at gmx.de>
Subject: LL-L Names

Hallo all,

Ron wrote re my name "Hülsey":
>
> Felix,
>
> Could the -ey part in Hülsey have come from a word for "island"?
>
> Old English: éaland , íegland
> Old Frisian: aland , eiland
> Old Norse: ey-, -ey
> Modern English: island
> Modern Dutch: eiland
> Modern German: Ei land
>
> I'm aware that islands in rivers and lakes tend to be called Werth ,
> -worth, etc. (e.g. Old Frisian werth, Old Saxon werith, Old German
> werid, similar to Nordic holm, hulms?), but you never know what the
> story behind it is.
>
> Note Island names such as Nordern ey, Jers ey, Guernsey, Aldern ey,
> Orkney, Linds ey and Shelvey.
>
> This is widely believed to be derived from words for "water" (hence
> "water-land"), related to Old Frisian a, Old Saxon aha , Old German aha,
> Old English éa < Germanic *aha < Indo-European * akua (cf. Latin aqua ).

And Johnny wrote:

>
> My personal assumption to your name: I shouldn't think that the 'Ilex'
> was godfather of your name. Couldn't it originally have been something
> like 'Hüs-e-ler', Middle High German /'hiuseler'/ meaning 'a poor farmer
> with just few own land but living in his own house'?


Thanks for these interesting thoughts! The -ey-thing sounds good, though
a search on www.familysearch.org revealed that bearers of the name
Hülsey have been registered almost exclusively in one little town near
Gütersloh, namely Wiedenbrück, for centuries (that's where my father was
born, too), and there are no islands there, not even a river as far as I
know.

By the way, the "werth" thing was new to me too, it explains the names
of quite a few islands here in the river Rhine.

Johnny, I like your idea, too, it would explain things more smoothly I
think.

But what would you make of quite common Westphalian family names like
Hülsmann or Hülsberg, or of the place name Hüls? There are at least two
Hüls in NRW, one is a part of Marl on the northern edge of the
Ruhrgebiet (I actually went to school there) and the other one is near
Krefeld on the Lower Rhine.

Have a nice weekend everyone!
Felix
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