HOW DO WE SPELL OUR NAME

This question was put to me in a conversation with  Cousin Bobby Gene Heuermann and it is a good one !  I grew up spelling my name Heuermann, not because I knew that was the way it was spelled but because that is how I was instructed to write it. What a surprise when I learned that not all members of the family spelled it this way.

Early on l had become aware that there is no "correct" way to spell a surname. I have had to be tuned into the various alternate spellings and I've had to be able to spot them along with the usual spelling of our name. It is interesting to note that a simple nine  letter name such as Heuermann can be spelled so many ways. Hellermann, Hevermann, Herman, Hoyerman, Huermann, and any variation of the above with one ending n. There was really no such thing as  standardized spelling of names until well into this  century. ln fact, an otherwise well educated person sometimes spelled his own name a variety of ways, usually by how it sounded.

I am convinced that Heuermann has been spelled more than one way and may have  been spelled a variety of ways in early records.

I can visualize our ancestors telling the county  court clerks, census takers, and other officials :  "That's Heuermann with two  "n's".  This scenario would lead us to believe that our common progenitor was literate in a time when illiteracy was an

acceptable fact of a frontiersman's life. However,  we know that Hermann Heinrich signed his name on the Naturalization papers in 1873 and again in 1892 when he and Anna Sophie smith sold a farm in Conroe, Montgomery county, texas.

As I pursued the genealogy and history of our  Heuermann  family, l have tried to be faithful to the  spelling I felt was generally preferred by the individual in question. You will, therefore, find that  in some cases the name changes from "Heuermann" to  "Heuerman" in the fourth generation, sometimes  halfway through a large family.

So cousin Bobby, back to your question : "how  do we spell our name?" I guess the answer is that genealogically speaking, we spell it however we wish, but in this day and age it is spelled by whatever is on your birth certificate, unless there has been a legal name change approved in an appropriate court of law.

ORIGIN OF NAMES

In researching the family tree it was interesting to learn why and how we are named.. I hope you find the following information as interesting as i did.

The idea of the last name, or surname, was started in China in about 2850 B.C.  There, each family would choose one of 400 words in a very sacred poem and this would be that family's last name.

In ancient Rome, each citizen possessed at least three names; a given name, a tribal name and a family name.  After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th. century A.D. the use of the hereditary surname was abandoned in Europe.  Gradually last names were introduced again in the Middle Ages.  By the 16th. century most people in England had last names, but they were not in all Europe countries until much later.

At first, only those people of high nobility had last names.  But when towns and cities grew larger, the need for better identification of all these people for tax purposes and church registers became necessary.

Also, at that time, the Church insisted that everyone was named after a saint.  But since there was only a limited number of theses names, last names became necessary as another means of identification. 

By this time, the Middle Ages were in bloom.  Some people chose surnames that indicated a person's place of residence.  This could have been from towns, countries, natural or manmade landmarks.  Surnames indicating the name of a person's father were quite common in the Middle Ages.  These surnames are very common in our country and other countries as well.

Many family names were taken from their occupations.

Some people had symbols posted above the entrance to their taverns or shops.  So many of them took the animal or abject this symbol stood for as their last names.

Descriptive names make up the smallest class in English, but there are still quite a few of these.  They usually referred to physical characteristics, a person's charter or famous or-not-so famous deeds in a man's life.

A Name is a word which in itself has next to no meaning.  It is merely a tag.  It means almost no more than the work, the.  "The" only separates words; a name separates one man from the rest.  It doesn't tell much about the person.  During the last 50 years great numbers of immigrants with non-Anglo-Saxon backgrounds and greater numbers of their American born children have changed their names.  Many names are literally or freely translated into English.  Polish-Americans change their names more than any other group.  The Jewish experience the least difficulty in renaming themselves.  The Chinese have the custom of giving children temporary names, then letting them choose their own first names later.  For christians, the name given at baptism is the true name of an individual, the surname merely being a description added to assist in identification of the family.  The earliest personal names among all people had definite meanings.  Most of the common given names that we know so well today were practically unknown in England until after 1100 A.D.

If your last name doesn't seem to fit in any of these categories, then it was probably derived from a different language.  American surnames can be traced to nearly every country in Europe.

Much thought should be given when naming a child.  In naming a child there should be harmony in sound, pronunciation and rhythm.  Everyone can name a baby, but few can do it well.  When one dies it is the only part that lives on in the world.

The following is a list of some of the common and less than common given names of yesteryears, along with  the nicknames derived from them:

Some of the common nicknames for masculine  given names are :

"Jack"  for John, "Jim" for James, "Andy" (or Andrew,  etc.

What is surprising is that there were many nicknames for feminine given names that have over the years come to be used as given names in their own right. The following is a list of some of the common and less than common given names of yesteryears, along with  the nicknames derived from them:

Mary=  Molly, Polly  Ann;  Nancy= Nan, Nanny;  Elizabeth=  Betsy, Bessie, Betty, Eliza,  Liza , Lisa;  Margaret=  Peggy, Maggie, Meg, Peg  Martha;  Patsy=  Pattie, Mattie;  Jane=  Jenny, Jean;  Harriet=  Hallie, Nallie, Hettie;  Catherine=  Kate, Kitty, Katy ;  Sarah=  Sallie, Sally;  Alice=  Allie;  Eugenia=  Jiliks, Jenks

lt is necessary to be able to connect these nicknames to their original versions, so that we can identify  our ancestresses by whatever names they are  called in any given document. 

there is a list of some of the common and less  than common given names of yesteryears, along with  the nicknames derived from them:

  Mary  Polly  Ann-Nancy, Nan, Nanny  Elizabeth -Betsy, Bessie, Betty, Eliza,  Liza , Lisa  Margaret_Peggy, Maggie, Meg, Peg  Martha__Palsy, Pattie, Mattie  Jane_Jenny, Jean  Harriet _Hallie, Nallie, Hettie  Catherine Kate, Kitty, KaCy  Sarah_Sallie, Sally  Alice-Allie  Qugenia_JiIiks, Jenks