G2G: German or Czech surnames? / Německá nebo česká příjmení?

Question

Hello,

I have been working on my family tree for the past 12 years. My father's side is mostly German, however, I have discovered some of his ancestors did live in Bohemia (what today we refer to as the Sudetenland).

I am trying to determine if a few ancestors were of Czech ethnicity. One of these ancestors was named Anna Stiepanin (1738-????) who was born in Bonětice (Großwonetitz).The records, and the baptismal record, show this name written as Stiepanin, however, the whole record is in German. Steipanin does not sound like a German name. A friend suggested that the original name could have been Štěpánová, but Stiepanin is written in German orthography and the "-in" is used to show the feminine form in German. Also, Anna's father was Joannes Stiepana (????-1759). His name is written differently.

There are other names, Frabscha and Schmaus, which also have Czech versions, Frabša and Šmaus. Are these names originally Czech names changed into German, or German names changed into Czech?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

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Ahoj,

Na svém rodokmenu pracuji posledních 12 let. Otcova strana je převážně Němka, ale zjistil jsem, že někteří jeho předkové žili v Čechách (dnes nazýváme Sudety).

Snažím se zjistit, jestli pár předků bylo českého etnika. Jeden z těchto předků se jmenoval Anna Stiepanin (1738-????), která se narodila v Boněticích (Großwonetitz). Záznamy a křestní záznam uvádí toto jméno psané jako Stiepanin, ale celý záznam je v němčině. Steipanin nezní jako německé jméno. Kamarád navrhl, že původní jméno mohlo být Štěpánová, ale Stiepanin je psán německým pravopisem a "-in" se používá k zobrazení ženského tvaru v němčině. Také Annin otec byl Joannes Stiepana (????-1759). Jeho jméno se píše jinak.

Jsou i další jména, Frabscha a Schmaus, která mají i české verze, Frabša a Šmaus. Jsou tato jména původně česká jména změněna na německá, nebo německá jména změněná na česká?

Jakákoli pomoc je velmi oceňována.

Answer 1

Names went back and forth between Czech and German spelling depending on the language used in the respective church books, sometimes resulting in some kids in a family with Czech spelling of their names and others with German. Stiepanin sounds like the German version of a Czech name but since church records were the only official records for the Habsburg lands and German was an official language in the kingdom of Bohemia I would stick with that name and not try to re-czechify it. In any case, at the time in question Štěpánová would not have been the Czech version of the name as this orthography did not come into use until the mid-19th century. Ultimately, if somebody was of Czech or German origin could only be determined by going as far back in the records as possible, in most cases until the early 1600's, earlier if you have land and seigniorial registers. The family names alone are not always helpful, there are numerous examples of people with German looking names but speaking Czech and so considered in the censuses as Czechs and vice versa.

Comments

I have consulted a member of the Sudetedeutsches Museum who has told me that when looked at ethnicity, he looks at five criteria and then assigns points to them. And here is what he has told me
Five important indicators A) to E) play  a role, each of which has different weight.

The number of maximum points per category represents this.

Weight	Category	Occupied with
3 S.	A) Long-term origin from a cz-speaking ethnic group	List of souls 1651, land registers
5 S.	B) Czech-speaking environment of the place	Map with language border, Schaller: Topography of Bohemia
4 S.	C) lives with Czech-speaking relatives	cz First names in marriage and baptism records in the church book
2 S.	D) has left Czech cultural evidence	cz Letters, signatures, signatures, documents in the local chronicle
6 S.	E) refers to his colloquial language as Czech	Census form before 1900

(max. 20 points)

If you score at least 10 points for person X, there is a good suspicion that X belongs to the Czech ethnicity;  if you get at least 15 points for person Y, you can assume that Y belongs to the Czech ethnicity. From 18 points, there are no more doubts.

You have already collected a wide variety of documents for your three candidates in order to evaluate this.

For D) the chronicles and land registers would be a good source; But even there I do not appreciate a large score for the Czech ethnic group among your three candidates.

With regard to E) - the most important category - I have only read from Schmaus Johann in column IX of the 1880 census sheet that he gives "german" as the colloquial language. With Stephana and Frabscha this is unknown to me - but I would also be interested.

Interim results 2023-04-06:

Weight Stephana cz?
 3 P.  (a) 0
 5 P.  (b) 0
 4 P.  C) ?
 2 P.  D) ?
 6 P.  E)    ?    Sum max. 12 P. for the Czech ethnicity, if all ?  .max.   points, rather 6 points

Weight Schmaus cz?
 3 P.  A) ?
 5 P.  (b) 0
 4 p.c) ?
 2 P.  D) ?
 6 P.  E) 0 Sum max. 9 P. for the Czech ethnicity, if all ?  .max.   points, rather 5 points

Weight Frabscha cz?
 3 P.  (a) 0
 5 P.  (b) 0
 4 p.c) ?
 2 P.  D) ?
 6 P.  E)    ? Sum max. 12 P. for the Czech ethnicity, if all ?  .max.   points, rather 6 points

So I don't give any of their three candidates a chance to cross the 15-point threshold.
Of course, all this is just my experience poured into a matrix.  Unimportant are the family name, the owner of the land and the ethnicity of the rule, which therefore do not appear in the matrix.

Other researchers may see it differently and underestimate the complexity. I have long experience with my name Honal and with my dear relatives in West Bohemia, who, with German roots, nevertheless changed to the Czech ethnic group from 1880 (and, unlike me, were not expelled in 1945, but suffered great hardship in Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1989).  In East Bohemia and Prague I have a large Czech family who have always lived in a Czech-speaking environment.  Our German-Bohemian Baroque sculptor Patzak was commissioned in the Kulturkampf by the Kunsthistorker V.V.   Štech attached a Czech nationality - that's why the Nazis put him in the Dachau concentration camp.   Crazy!

By the way, the difference of ethnicities played a role (and thank God!)  before 1880 no special role.   If German-Bohemians were in the minority in one place, they could also communicate in Czech. And vice versa: where the Czechs were in the minority, they could german to understanding. And: It was married back and forth.

Karl Stich describes in his book "Heimat in Böhmen" the terrible plagues of compulsory labour, which had to be performed without pay for the aristocratic rule.  Often the own fields had to be neglected, because the rule forced the compulsory labor.  Among the farmers and cottagers, ethnicity hardly plays a role. The decisive difference was: Are you subject or did you belong to the ruler?

Another treat for Easter:

From the birth / baptism entry for Johann Schmaus (*1835-08-28 - how are you related to him?)   I see that he was born in Großwonetitz No. 3.   The house must have been close to No. 1.

The map mapy.cz allows both a panoramic view of  house #1, on the bottom right of the ownership of the houses today (the Czechs have no data protection, they want transparency) and the landscape in the  19th century.   Jhd.  .   Have fun with it!

Best wishes

Werner Honal

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This being said, I can't help but think that Anna Stiepanin and her father Joannes Stiepana, must have been of Czech heritage albeit a log shot.

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Just as an aside: Stiepana is in all likelihood also not the correct form for the name. Štěpána is the genitive for Štěpán. In German and pre-19th century Czech that would be Stiepan or Śtėpan, the ė being the precursor for ě.

Answer 2

I tried to use some namenkarte.com and kartezumnamen.eu and namenskarten.lima-city.at for Stiepanin and Stiepana, but no success. I used Google too and :-) there is something. History of the village Korolupy It surelly does not mean that Anna or Joannes were in Korolupy. Korolupy are far from Bonětice. But both Bonětice and Korolupy are near to Austria. In the History of village Korolupy, there is the list of fields tenants (subjects) from 1672. And Stiepan, Stiepanin, Stiepanu are used. 1. If the name was german, it stood german (like Stephan). If the name was czech, it was transcribed to german (like Stiepan). Stiepanu means "of family Stiepan". Stiepanin could mean the offspring of a woman of the given name Stiepana (Stephanie). But most likely Stiepanin is some old local naming game. 2. It happened many times, that a new tenant of a settlement (grunt) got a nickname derived from the grunt designation. And he could nothing to do with it, because there was many branches of a few families (of the same name) in a village and a grunt designation was the most usefull possibility to differ. 3. Looking into this list, there is a couple of Stiepan and Stiepanu and I am sure, they are an offspring of the same Stiepan. As well there is Wide, Witt, Witte and I guess, they had also one common ancestor.