LL-L "Names" 2010.08.06 (08) [EN]

[Lowlands-L List]

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*L O W L A N D S - L - 06 August 2010 - Volume 08
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From: Ben J. Bloomgren <ben.j.bloomgren at gmail.com>

Subject: [lll] orthography



Ron and all,



I was back in Kansas a couple of weeks ago when a family member started to
talk to me about our "German" heritage. Apparently my maternal grandmother's
family comes from Rügen Island up in Ostfrießland. She said that the
spelling used in documents from the 1800s is From. I asked a friend who
comes from Bergisch Gladbach, near Köln. He said that the modern spelling is
Fromm, meaning pious or devout. The spelling as it is today is Frahm. What
does that all mean first of all?



Secondly, my family has obtained some documents from the 1850's regarding
the Frahms. We have brought them to several writers and readers of modern
"Germans", but they can make little sense out of them. They say that the
writing is more "fancy". Can yall enlighten me on these things?



Ben ('io lani)



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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>

Subject: Names

Hi, Ben!

Nice to hear from you again.

The Isle of Rugia (*Rügen*) lies in the Baltic Sea off the coast of the
German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (*Mecklenburg-Vorpommern* in
German, *Mäkelborg-Vörpommern* in Low Saxon) situated east of Hamburg in an
area that used to belong to Eastern Germany. Eastern Friesland or East
Frisia are the English names for what in German is *Ostfriesland* and in Low
Saxon *Oostfreesland*. It is a region within the German state of Lower
Saxony (*Niedersachsen* in German and *Neddersassen* in Low Saxon). This
means that it is situated *west *of Hamburg and on the North Sea coast. So
we are talking about different regions here.

Fromm is a German surname, is also somwhat common as a Jewish German
surname. It’s literal meaning is ‘pious’ (though I am not sure if this is
really its etymology). The Low Saxon equivalent is Fraam, often spelled
Germanized as Frahm. Since in most Low Saxon dialects the long “a” is
pronounced “o”-like, many people took to spelling it “o”. So an earlier
spelling of this Low Saxon name as From (with a *long* “o” sound, not a
short one as in German) is thus quite consistent.

By the way, what is now Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania used to be primarily
inhabited by speakers of Western Slavic language varieties, primarily
Polabian and Pomeranian. Speakers of Saxon and Dutch later populated the
area and many of them mixed with the Slavic population. The Isle of Rugia
(Germany’s largest island, I believe) was of particular significance among
pre-Christian Slavs. It is there that certain pilgrimage sites were found,
mostly dedicated to the three-headed god Triglav (“three-head”). (I wonder
if there is any connection with the Hindu त्रिमूर्ति Trimūrti and even the
Christian trinity.)

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA



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