{"id":8503,"date":"2017-06-14T13:50:46","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T13:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=8503"},"modified":"2017-07-12T13:28:16","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T13:28:16","slug":"german-first-names-then-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/german-first-names-then-now\/","title":{"rendered":"German First Names: Then & Now"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Guten Tag! Today I thought I\u2019d cover the interesting topic of German Vornamen (first names). When you think of German names, which ones spring immediately to mind? Helga? Hermann? Greta? These are classic examples of stereotypical German names \u2013 but are babies still given these names in Germany today? In this post I\u2019ll give the German equivalents of some common English names, and we\u2019ll find out how the most popular German baby names have changed since the 1990s!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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German First Names: Then & Now.<\/p><\/div>\n

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English equivalents of German names<\/h2>\n

It can be fascinating to see how the same name is spelt and pronounced in a different language. Sometimes, you may not even realise it\u2019s the same name until it\u2019s pointed out to you! Here are a few common English names with their German equivalents:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

M\u00c4NNLICH (MALE)<\/h3>\n

John \u00a0\u2013 Johann<\/strong>(Yo-hun)<\/em><\/p>\n

William \u2013 Wilhelm<\/strong>(Will-helm)<\/em><\/p>\n

Frank \u2013 Franz<\/strong>(Frants)<\/em><\/p>\n

George \u2013 Georg<\/strong>(Geh-org<\/em>) or J\u00f6rg<\/strong>(Yerg)<\/em><\/p>\n

Henry \u2013 Heinrich<\/strong> (Hine-rich<\/em> with a soft \u2018ch\u2019 \u2013 hard to spell out)<\/p>\n

Lewis \u2013 Ludwig<\/strong>(Lood-vig)<\/em><\/p>\n

Joseph\/Joe \u2013 Josef<\/strong>(Your-seff)<\/em><\/p>\n

Jacob \u2013 Jakob<\/strong>(Ya-kobb)<\/em><\/p>\n

Bernard \u2013 Bernd<\/strong>(bearnt)<\/em><\/p>\n

Matthew \u2013 Matthias<\/strong>(Mah-tea-us)<\/em><\/p>\n

Nicholas\/Nick \u2013 Niklas<\/strong> (Nick-lars)<\/em><\/p>\n

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WEIBLICH (FEMALE)<\/h3>\n

Bridget \u2013 Brigitte<\/strong>(Bri-gitt-eh)<\/em><\/p>\n

Elizabeth\/Liz \u2013 Elisabett<\/strong>(Eh-lee-sa-bett)<\/em><\/p>\n

Margaret \u2013 Greta<\/strong>(Greh-tah)<\/em><\/p>\n

Louise\/Louisa \u2013 Luise<\/strong>(Loo-ee-seh)<\/em><\/p>\n

Julia \u2013 Julia<\/strong> (You-lee-ah)<\/em><\/p>\n

Katherine \u2013 Katrin<\/strong> (Cat-reen)<\/em><\/p>\n

Stephanie\/Steph \u2013 Steffi<\/strong>(Shteff-ee)<\/em><\/p>\n

Judith \u2013 Judit<\/strong>(You-dit)<\/em><\/p>\n

Joanne\/Joanna \u2013 Johanna<\/strong> (Your-hannah)<\/em><\/p>\n

Francesca\/Frankie \u2013 Franziska<\/strong>(Frun-ziss-kah)<\/em><\/p>\n

Nina \u2013 Janina<\/strong> (Ya-Nina)<\/em>. Alternative spelling: Ninja<\/strong>(Neen-ya).
\n<\/em>(Living in an English-speaking country, I now wish my German mum had called me Ninja. ?)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Popular German names in 1900s and today<\/h2>\n

According to babyMed<\/a> and other websites, some of the most popular German baby names in the 1900s were as follows: Ernst, Friedrich, Heinrich, Otto, Erich, Herbert, Fritz (boys) and Gertrud, Anna, Frieda, Else, Herta, Elisabeth, Maria (girls).<\/p>\n

According to surveys done by the Gesellschaft f\u00fcr Deutsche Sprache (the Society for German Language) <\/a>and FirstNamesGermany.com<\/a>, the most popular German baby names of 2016 included the following: Elias, Leon, Felix, Lukas, Luis, Noah, Finn, Jonas, Paul, Ben (boys) and Marie, Leah, Lina, Mila, Anna, Emilia, Hannah, Sofia, Emma and Mia (girls).<\/p>\n

According to the GfDS, the most popular German baby names in 2016 were Elias <\/strong>and Marie. <\/strong><\/p>\n

These lists show how far removed our idea of a \u2018typical German\u2019 name is from what it really is today!<\/p>\n

I hope this has been interesting. Why not comment below with your name, and let\u2019s see if it has a German equivalent, too!<\/p>\n

Bis bald,<\/em><\/p>\n

Constanze<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Guten Tag! Today I thought I\u2019d cover the interesting topic of German Vornamen (first names). When you think of German names, which ones spring immediately to mind? Helga? Hermann? Greta? These are classic examples of stereotypical German names \u2013 but are babies still given these names in Germany today? In this post I\u2019ll give the…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":8505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,8,913],"tags":[2005,8883,952,95066,473457,1163,3422,358430],"class_list":["post-8503","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-language","category-traditions","tag-children","tag-german-history","tag-german-names","tag-history-2","tag-language-history","tag-names","tag-stereotypes","tag-traditions-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8503"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8543,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8503\/revisions\/8543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}