"-meister" as name suffix

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>I'm wondering about the use of the suffix _-meister_ as a jocular
>addition to (the first syllable of) a name, as in "the Jessmeister"
>or the like. There is an entry for this in HDAS, with the comment
>that it was popularized by a Saturday Night Live sketch that began
>in 1991, but recently a large number of people have told me that
>they used it in the early '80s or late '70s or earlier. Does
>anyone have any knowledge of use this early, or, better, a citation
>for such use?
>
>It seems very early to me, given the rough period that _-meister_
>in its broader sense, to indicate a person knowledgable about or
>expert in something specified by the initial element, appears to
>have become popular itself.

Chapman dates '-meister' from pre-1965, on the model of 'schlockmeister',
and that's about how I remember it. This was generally attached to just
about any common noun, and it proliferated ridiculously in the 1970's as I
recall.

In the early days it was usually not attached to names, as I recall.

However, a similar silly ending, '-man', was in occasional casual use at
least by the late 1960's, attached to a syllable of any man's name, as I
recall, as in "the Jess-man" (both syllables stressed). I think this ending
was used on "Saturday Night Live" way back when, but I can't give a date --
I think I remember this cutesy (purposely affected) usage in the form of
"the Wood-man" for Woody Allen by one of the SNL stars whose name I can't
recall right now (he played the corrupt parapsychologist in "Ghostbusters").

"[Name]-meister" probably arose as a conflation of these two usages --
likely beginning in the very early 1970's if not late 1960's. I THINK I
heard "-man" replaced with "-meister" in this usage by 1974, but even if I
did it may have been merely as an isolated error. Certainly I recall it
from 1980 (among more or less intoxicated young males, Miami FL).

-- Doug Wilson