Hey Dana, are you sure you mean “Cord” and not “Kurt”? Maybe it’s a regional thing, but I’ve never heard “Cord” being used as a name. For me Cord has always just meant corduroy fabric, haha.
When you look at the list of famous namesakes on Wikipedia, they are really all from Lower Saxony, Hamburg, Hanover, Bremen... It is definitely a Northern German name.
Gatte is actually a short version of the word Ehegatte. Which means husband, like you said. There is also the word Gattin or Ehegattin, which means wife.
To be precise: "Gatte" was once a word for a companion in general, and "Ehegatte" was used to refer specifically to a spouse - a marital companion, if you will. However, the old, general meaning of "companion" for "Gatte" was lost over time, and it was soon only associated with the "spouse" meaning. The feminine forms are of course "Gattin" and "Ehegattin", but they presumably only date back to the 18th century. Before that, "Gatte" was the word for both men and women.
@@froedlmetallmann4643 yeah you can say spouse as well as husband/wife. But with spouse it doesnt matter if you are referring to a man or a woman but with Gatte/Gattin it does.
@@alexandrorocca7142 Ja ich habe auch gedacht, dass viele Leute in Deutschland so heißen aber vielleicht habe ich mich da auch unbewusst ein bisschen von der Schweiz beeinflussen lassen
Regarding Manfred: I am surprised that Dana never heard of the Band Manfred Mann's Earth Band, where she should have learned about that Firstname. Regarding Gerhard: I love the old comedy western "The Halelujah Trail" (40 wagen westwärts) where Burt Lancaster plays Colonel Gearhard pronounced like the americanized version of the german Firstname. And please change your pronounciation of Käthe! Do not name these girls a "chain" as Kette is pronounced with a short vowel where Käääääthe should be spoken slower with a looong vowel ;-)
I never heard of them. You have to think what age she is. 1970's music was awhile ago. Also not all music that was popular in Europe made it across the Atlantic. If they did make it across the Atlantic they were a 1 hit wonder SOMETIMES. UB40 Red Red Wine is the 1 hit wonder that comes to my mind. I moved to Switzerland and was shocked they weren't a 1 hit wonder here.
Cord is more of a Northern German Name. Just like Xaver ist more like a Southern German Name and the Abbreviation Jupp for Joseph is very common in the Rhineland Region.
Kinala Nela „Latten Jupp“ is a prerogative name for Jesus on the cross. www.mundmische.de/bedeutung/1346-Lattenjupp Jupp was often used in the Rhineland or Ruhr area.
Berti kann be short for any name with the syllable "Bert" in it. Bertolt, Hubert, Engelbert, Gosbert... the names combined of Germanic name syllables are a bit on the retreat these days, they were chic in the 1920s to 1950s but lost drive afterwards.
And there is a reason for their popularity: everyone wanted their kids to be super german by default. Either because they were proud of it or just wanted to erase all doubt when the Nazis came around. Was safer for the kids to have an "arian" name.
@@meplays5269 Err... they were just fashionable. Zeitgeist, you know. They existed before the nazis, and they were around after them, and maybe they'll be back one of these days. Like, when I was a kid, Emma, Frieda, and Lina were names for old spinsters - today, they are hipster girls' names.
That syllable Bert is derived from old german "beraht" (meaning radiant, splendid). Combined with "Rhaban" (=Raven) it would become "Robert", and "Engelbert" would be connected to the Angles, the germanic tribe that mixed with the saxons in Britain.
As for Käthe: You pronounce it as "Kette". Try coming from the English pronunciation of "Caity" and make it a short "e" at the end as in the English name "Kade". Then you just need to slightly elongate the "ay" sound in the middle and you are at "Käthe".
Moin Dana, danke, dass Du meinen Namen so magst 🤗. Ich habe gelernt, dass das die Verkleinerung des Namens Maria ist und aus dem Friesischen kommt. Ich bin sehr froh über die Wahl meiner Eltern 😊
@@boombaby1769 Can you please tell me your source? I refer to the English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Age_(2002_film)), it never says Manfred.
There's a lot of names you mentioned that I know from famous people: Manfred Mai, Waltraud Meier, Verena Aschauer, Moritz Bleibtreu, Hildegard von Bingen, Jupp Heynckes, Käthe Kollwitz. There's a German movie call 'Free Rainer' coincidentally starring Moritz Bleibtreu. Siegfried will always remind me of Der Ring des Nibelungen. There's also a brand called Engelbert Strauss, that's the first thing that came to mind when you mentioned the name.
Love that video! Verena sounds Italian to me, and, appropriately, it's derived from Latin "verus". Just learned that Meike is a north German form of Maria - Mary. Many of the names you mentioned have origins in the ancient languages of Old High German and Middle High German with powerful translations. For instance, Berthold is "glänzender Herrscher" = "shining emperor". Käthe = Katharina => Kathrin, -chen being the diminuitive. For perfection, just pronounce it with a long "ä", "Kääthe" Fun fact: Heinz ketchup was invented by Henry (Heinrich=Heinz) John (=Johannes=Hans) Heinz, son of German immigrants to the USA.
Mein Vorname ist Helge - ich bin männlich. Den Namen gibt es auch öfter in Deutschland und ich kenne auch eine Frau, die den Namen Helge hat, wobei es bei Frauen auch den Namen Helga gibt (HelgE - HelgA). Mein name kann also sowohl von Frauen, als auch von Männern benutzt werden.
Interesting... Moritz, Meike, Reiner and Jupp exist in Dutch as well, just as Maurits, Maaike, Reinier and Joep or Youp. Gerd also exists in Dutch, like former mayor of Maastricht Gerd Leers, although it's more frequently spelled with a _t_ instead of a _d_, like in my name Gertjan. Lieselotte also exists in Dutch, although parts of the name are more frequently used: Lies or Lotte. Another one I was surprised to find in German is Bente, which I'd always presumed was really Dutch. Odd, that :)
I live in Germany close to the border to NL. To me Dutch sounds like Hochdeutsch (German) Plattdeutsch (old "traditional" regional german) and English combined. Even before I learned Dutch I could read a lot of it because it's so similar :)
I’m from USA and lived in Deutschland from 2001-2004 and first heard the name “Katherina” aka “Kati” when I lived there and totally fell in love with it! I named my first daughter Katherina and she is almost 16 years old now!! I’ve wanted to move back to Deutschland every since but haven’t been able to... yet!!
I BET you have heard of the name ending -bert before: Think of "Robert"! I guess "Berti" is short for any name with "bert" in it and there are LOTS: Bertram, Hubert, Herbert, Norbert, Gilbert, Dagobert ... Most of the names you mentioned are very common, but only for old people (with the exception of Meike/Maike and Moritz who are still quite popular). They are mostly Germanic names which got out of fashion about 50 years ago so hardly any younger German has those names anymore. But there are a few which are coming back nowadays, like Friedrich or Paul or Karl.
Besides Verena, Meike und Moritz these names are only common for middle aged people or elders. But some of them are popular baby names again, for example Kurt (i dont think anyone writes it Cord)
The name "Lieselotte" is featured in Erich Kästner's book "Das doppelte Lottchen" ("Lottie and Lisa" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottie_and_Lisa) where parents name there twin girls Liese and Lotte splitting their granny's name Lieselotte. The story has been adapted as "The Parent Trap" movies in 1961 (featuring Hayley Mills) and again in 1998 (featuring Lindsay Lohan).
I'm neither German nor in Germany. However, I work at a university and deal with research publications all day, primarily but not exclusively ones written in English. So due to my work, I had seen several of these names before, however I had no idea what language these names were associated with or whether they were common or not.
= Mauritius (if blue, it might be very precious) obviously a name from the Roman era (St. Maurice, often depicted as a black man like in Magdeburg Cathedral)
To answer your central question: YES, I´ve heard all of those and it makes me wonder that even some of them are that unknown abroad. Pretty shure, that you can find some heritages for all of them (digging deep enough), that you can link to an actual american equivalent? Btw, I really love that courious joy you seem to have while exploring new things.Please don´t lose it.
Käthe is pronounced with a long Ä. This sound is a little confusing because Germans don't really agree on how to pronounce it: For some it's the same as long E, for some it's like the short Ä just pronounced longer.
Meike or Maike is a girl's name of - if I remember that right - old German/ Frisian origin. Male versions would be Meik/Maik or Meiko. Those names with -gard or -hold are probably of Germanic origin. Käthe is a nick name for Katharina or Katharine (my God mother's name is Katharina but everyone just calls her Käthe), same goes for Änne, which could be one for Anne or Anna. Käthchen or Ännchen are diminutive versions to those, they could both be used to endear or belittle someone or something (like many names/words with -chen or -lein, or in Swiss Getman probably - li). And I'm pretty sure Bert or Berti could be nicknames for any (male name) with "Bert", regardless of it's position in the full name ^^'
On that note: I am frequently confused by the use of the name Gretchen (and its americanized pronunciation) in US movies. Apart from its appearence in Goethes "Faust" it is fairly uncommon in Germany, let alone as a (full) given name, probably because of that "belittling" ring it has to it.
Nele is just short for Cornelia, and I find it very childish to call a girl thus without the option of having a grown-up name. Same counts for Jule (Julia) A woman from her 20s onwards shouldn't have a baby name... Fabian is a Roman/Latin name and is not explicitly Northern German. Jannis is the transcription of Γιάννης, the Greek form of Johannes, and thus not Northern, either.
@@Baccatube79 All of those are among the most common names in Northern Germany, including Fabian and Jannis (they exist elsewhere as well but that wasn't the point). And Nele in that form constantly tops the charts of names in Hamburg, so no, it's not just short for Cornelia (anymore). And Jule is so common for young women I have NO idea what you are talking about.
I would say, out of those names, only Bente, Fenja, (maybe) Frieda, Lasse and Sören are truly typical for northern (northwest to be exact) Germany. I've lived in Thuringia, Saxony, Berlin and now Mecklenburg and all those other names are really common throughout.
@@Baccatube79 I never knew that Nele is short for Cornelia. Here in Belgium I don't know anyone who's called Cornelia, but I know serveral who are called Nele. It is a common name here. Nobody sees it as a childish name.
@@stefanmeinicke4239 I know Lasse through my contact to sweden, and find out this is a swedish form to Lars (Lauretius) , like Sebbe is Sebastian, Bosse -Bo, Mikke-Michael etc.
Verena is actually derived from Greek „pherenike“ (the one that brings victory), and is this actually related to the brand „Nike“, which is the name of the Greek goddess of victory.
yes, everyone having a 'bert' in their name can be called 'Berti' (Engelbert, Adalbert, Berthold, Bertram, Herbert/Heribert, or even the english 'Gilbert') but I don't think it's an 'eingetragener Name', only a Nickname like Jupp for Josef/Joseph And Meike/Maike is a female name as far as I know and not genderneutral. Also, if you give your child a genderneutral name like Robin or Kim you must add another name which is NOT genderneutral so that you can tell a persons gender based on their names for example: If you name your kid Robyn you have to give the child a second name like Robyn Maximilian or Robyn Heidi etc. etc. (I personally think that rule should be abolished)
I would say all of them except the abbreviations like Cord oder Jupp are common in Germany. Most of them are names of the around 50's Generation... Many names have "generation cycles" here, means they become popular again after being "out" for 1 to 3 generations. An example is Quirin; Quirins nowadays are either in their 80's or just had their 5th birthday...
"Jupp" is very common in the Ruhr region, but only as a short version of "Josef" or "Joseph". The brother of my (Friederike) father was named "Joseph", but everyone called him "Jupp". A famous example for "Jupp" is German soccer trainer Jupp Heynckes, but he was actually christened Joseph too.
old german names often consist of two parts having a distinct meaning. So you can combine Fried-, Adel, Bald-, Bert-, Kuni-, Ehren-, even Hilde- (and more) with -bert, -helm, rich to get male names, or with -linde, -lotte, -liese, -trude, -hilde (and more) to get female names. see wikipedia for it :)
Hey Dana, I think Cord is a very pretty or handsome name and always thought so since first stumbling upon a Cord (around the age of 22 and having spent most of these 22 years in Germany). I didn't know though (or probably forgot) that historically it comes from Conrad and carries the same meaning! So thanks for the (re-)enlightenment! :-)
Most of the names you mentioned are Germanic names. They are less common now and mostly associated with older people. Germanic names tend to consist of one or two elements that signify positive character traits the parents wanted the child to have or things they wished upon them. Most of them have to do with war because the Germanic tribes were pretty busy conquering Europe in the olden days. I put the modern German and/or English words in parenthesis to explain the meaning. Of course the names did not necessarily all come up at the same time and language is constantly evolving, so some elements look different at different starting points. To get to their modern forms, these names often went through a millennium of language change, so they might have looked and sounded a bit different at the beginning. magan (Mann/man - in the sense of manliness/strength) + frid (Frieden/peace) = Maganfrid = Manfred ragin (Rat/advice) + hari (Heer/army) = Raganhar = Rainer ragin (Rat/advice) + hard (hart/hardy, tough) = Raginhard = Reinhard ger (Speer/spear) + hard (hart/hardy, tough) = Gerhard kuoni (kühn/brave) + rad (Rat/advice) = Kuonirad = Konrad hlud (laut/loud in the sense of famous, well known) + hari (Heer/army) = Hludhari = Lothar sieg (Sieg/victory) + frid (Frieden/peace) = Siegfried hrod (Ruhm/fame) + swinth (geschwind/swift, the meaning leaning more towards strong at that point though) = Hrodswintha = Roswitha ermen (alle/all) + gard (Garten/guarded in the sense of a protected enclosure) = Ermengard = Irmgard wald (Gewalt, walten/power, ruler) + Thrud (a very strong daughter of Thor) = Waldthrud = Waltraud odal (the rune for inheritance) + ric (reich/rich) = Odalric = Ulrich (m)/Ulrike (f) hild (-/war,battle) + gard (Garten/guarded in the sense of a protected enclosure) = Hildegard heim (Heim/home) + ric (reich/rich) = Heimric = Heinrich, shortend to Heinz in some regions Karl (Kerl/strong guy) Bert (-/bright) engel (Engel/angel) + bert (-/bright) = Engelbert So now you already have some puzzle pieces to make new names, some of them might sound familiar: ger (Speer/spear) + Thrud (a very strong daughter of Thor) = Gertrud hari (Heer/army) + bert (-/bright) = Herbert hrod (Ruhm/fame) + bert (-/bright) = Hrodbert = Robert hrod (Ruhm/fame) + ric (reich/rich) = Hrodric = Roderich which became Rodrigo in Spanish and Roderick in English ric (reich/rich) + hard (hart/hardy, tough) = Richard wald (Gewalt, walten/power, ruler) + hari (Heer/army) = Waldhari = Walther This turned into quite the deep dive, my apologies! Have fun discovering more of these when seeing names anywhere from now on :D The other names you mentioned are "imported" names. Most of them came into German with the rise of Christianity because people started naming their kids after saints and bible characters.
Berti is also short for Herbert (and any other name with 'bert' in it). My grandpas name is Herbert but he doesn't like "Berti" so he gets called "Heppy" (pronounced like "happy") by everyone. Have you ever met or heard the names Beke (f), Sören (m), Dörte (f), Mats (m), Frauke (f), Arne (m), Traudel (f) or Eberhard (m)? In my opinion these are some pretty unusual names to foreigners. *I know at least one person with each name who is younger than 30.
Ehegatte is an oldish word for Ehemann. I've born and lived in Germany all my life but I've never heard the name Cord before I watched your video. Hope you and yours are well. You're getting through this together, even if you're apart. Big hugs from me.
I think a lot of kids that were born in 97/98/99 got named Moritz, because i guess that was just a popular name to give your kid at that time. At least i had a lot of Moritzs in all the years i went to school and i was born in 98 :)
My cousins in Germany are 13 years younger and I participated in their first day of school and all their classmates have really old fashioned American names from the siblings of my American grandma!
Meike, either with an e or an a (Maike) are girls names. For Jupp (pronounce the u like the two os in school), Jupp Hainkes was a trainer of a soccerteam, Jupp is mostly common in the northern part of germany.
Meike/Maike is usually considered female but Eike is male, though quite uncommon. Irmgard was my great grandmother and Waltraut her sister :D Another topic you might find interesting are the different writing of names depending on location. Former west Germany: Mike. Former east Germany: Maik. Käthe: you need a longer Ä,softer t, right now you are saying Kette and Kettchen :)
in polish we have a female name Maja which has diminutive Majka : ) all of the polish female names have A at the end, but it's practically the same name.
One can say, names ending with "-ke" are most likely to be female, though there are exceptions. Like Eike, which can be both genders, though I now more males called Eike than females. But Silke, Ulrike, Maike/Meike, Wiebke, Heike, Frauke, Anke or Friederike are all female names, all ending with "-ke"
I agree that Lieselotte is a sweet name. For me, it will forever be linked to Swiss actress Lieselotte Pulver, nicknamed "Lilo", because I grew up watching the German version of Sesame Street when Lilo Pulver was a regular on the show.
You never knew Bertolt Brecht, the German playwright and poet? I can't say I was super familiar with him, but I knew the name. He is mostly just used as a passing reference, though, in movies and television, usually by his surname. If you haven't seen the German film The Lives Of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) one of the Stasi agents reads a Brecht work. Great movie that received the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. By the way, I have been bingeing your older videos, and now know why your name is pronounced the way it is. It was driving me crazy so now I can move on.
I have a colleague named "Rainer" and the name of my a deceased uncle was "Reiner". Another "Reiner" is "Reiner Calmund", at present a manager of Laverkusen soccer team ("Bayer Leverkusen"). And perhaps you have heard about the singer / songwriter "Reinhard May". So theese are 3 different names.
Dana, There used to be a German restaurant in Tequesta, about 30ish miles from your old home in Florida. The owners were Horst & Verena. BTW, Horst is a name I've never heard anywhere else. I was sad to discover the restaurant had closed about 15 or 20 years ago.
Strangely enough, one of my favorite movies as a young child was the WWII movie "The Enemy Below" with Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens. I always remember the sturdy first mate on the German submarine named "Heinie", a nickname for Heinz, I'm sure. I never knew what the words were to the morale-lifting song the Germans sang as they were engaging in their cat-and-mouse attacks with the American destroyer, but I knew that it was an act of bravado in the face of terror and possible death. A similar movie, "Das Boot", was entirely in German with subtitles.
A funny one is "Dieter" (from "Dietrich"). Then there are some hard to pronounce names like Achim, Joachim or Jürgen. Sometimes you find "germanized" versions, like "Maik" instead of "Mike". When I was a child I didn't like my name "Daniel", but today I'm glad it's common and easy to pronounce in English.
They're quite old names though, I reckon, and probably the reason why a Belg/Belge/Belgier (or anyone else) would think of them when it comes to German names... :)
Leenapanther that‘s funny because as a german, I would say that Moritz and Verena are the only modern and at this time often used names. Most of the other names are really „old“ - like you would expect that anyones grandma is named like this but literally no one who is younger than 70.
By the way, I never heard the name Dana before. Jupp is an abbreviation of Joseph used in the northern Rhineland. It is not an official name. Formerly a very common name, but today not used so often. One thing I stumbled on: The "ä" in Käthe and Käthchen is spoken long, otherwise it sounds like "Fahrradkette" ("bicycle chain"). Käthe is the abbreviation of Katharina or Kathrin, but it is an official name. There is an old rule of behaviour, that probably no one remembers (Knigge died a long time ago): You never say "mein Gatte", but "mein Mann". A third person would say to you "Ihr Gatte" and not "Ihr Mann", if he wants to be polite. The same with "Gattin / Frau". If I would say "meine Gattin", I would be polite to myself, and that's "affig" (I can't translate this word, may be "artily"?)
Late comment: "Käthe", like "Moritz", is also just a germanized name, this time its origin is late classical greek "Katharina" - or Catherine in english. With the spread of Christianity the name became popular in all of Europe with local forms like "Kate", "Katrin", "Carina", "Yekaterina", "Kitty", "Aikaterine", "Caitlyn", "Katia", "Karen", "Katlyn", "Katinka", "Katrianna" or "Kathareu" (amongst hundreds more).
I am an American and I have heard some of these names before. My mother’s younger sister is name Bertie. Even though her real name is Evelyn Roberta. But everyone has always called her Bertie. And Dana I find it very hard to believe that you have never heard of the name Siegfried before you move to Germany. I guess you never heard of the famous Las Vegas magician act Siegfried and Roy before. And just like Siegfried I also find it hard to believe that you never heard of the name Hildegard before. I guess with me being part German and Austrian those names are just very common to me.
First of all thank YOU for your last video. It's good to hear that we share the same fears and thoughts. Anyway some of the names you say in this video were new to me. When I hear Hildegard, I think of Olaf because there is a scene in Frozen 2 where he's searching for a Hildegard (at least in German) 😂😂
American here: first time I heard the name Manfred was when I was a child, from Manfred Mann the English Band with the classic 80’s hit “Blinded By The Light”. Then I’ve heard it a few other times in my life here in the US. It’s not very common but it’s definitely not unheard of here. Mika is also a decently common name here now too. I grew up with a girl named Reina, also not very common but not unheard of. Also Cord I’ve hear in movies used as a name over the years. Also, there was a very famous singer from back in the day named Englebert Humperdink. Dana, me thinks that your life growing up here in the US was a bit sheltered 😂 Or maybe it’s just my being from NYC, the melting pot of the world, I’ve been exposed to more international names. I don’t know which, but it’s one or the other. But another fun video either way ❤️😘
regarding the name Heinz: It's quite common that a name ends up being part of a brands name. The Heinz company was named after the founder Henry John Heinz (Heinz can be a first and a surname, in this case it was the surname). Funnily Heinz fusioned with another company also named after its founder: James Lewis Kraft and Kraft foods. There are acutally a lot of companies, that follow this rule, like Henry Ford - Ford automobile company, Karl Albrecht - Aldi (Albrecht Discount), HERmann TIEtz (Hertie), Johann Riegel - Haribo (Hans Riegel Bonn, Hans was the nickname of Johann, Bonn is the location of the first factory in Germany) or Daimler-Benz (fusion of Gottlieb Daimler - Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and Carl Benz - Benz & Cie), even their most famous product, the Mercedes, is named after a person (Mercédès Jellinek, daughter of Emil Jellinek, a big customer of DMG).
Try listenning to the Oldies from the 50's and 60's and you will have a very new variety of german names like Anneliese, Margot, Catharina, Marita, Rosita, Lotte, Elfriede, Hannes, Huber ...
Wow, you mentioned my grandmother's, grandfather's, mother's and brother's name. The last one has a slightly other spelling and it's not very common, I'd say. But it was in your video! 🙂
I have a good friend in the Paderborn area named "Moritz". He has a cousin named "Hauke" and that cousin's father's name is Volker. also a good friend. His brother's name is "Leonard" and he goes by "Lenni". I got used to all those names over the years.
As a Dutch, Manfred definitely sound typical German, Meike is common in the Netherlands, as well as Gerd/Gert/Gerard. Lieselotte/liselotte is pretty common here as well.
dear dana, th fluffy, light and funny things are cute, when you do them, you're a wonderful person, love to listen to you.. and yes, the serious things impress me, too...blessed week to both of you...
39 years ago I was born in Germany and nearly all my life I lived here- and I never heard "Cord" as a name. I only know "Corduroy pants" (Cordhosen). All the other names I know. Names I heard for the first time when I was aduld: Reinhild, Mats, Bela, Wendelin, Silas,, Euthymia, Praxedis, Malou, Tialda,
Sometimes we have different short forms for the same long name, and these are often regional. For example, where I come from, "Konrad" becomes "Kor" (with a long o, like "Kohr"). "Georg" can be shortened to "Schorsch" or "Gerch" or "Gorch". Waltraud can be "Wally" or "Traudl". Be sure to pronounce them all in the German way :-) Yes, you can also have the short form as the official name.
(You mentioned half of my kinship here.) Roswitha -> Hrotswith von Gandersheim, nun and first female German poet in the 10th century AD Manfred -> King of Sicily (killed 1266, Hohenstaufen dynasty), the Italian city "Manfredonia" is named after him. Heinz (= Heinrich, very common name for German kings) and Cord (= Conrad, Konrad also a very common name of the medieval kings here). These names must have become so popular in Germany that their short variants "Hinz und Kunz" stand for "everyone" (pejorative, just like "Krethi und Plethi", a biblical term).
Hi Dana, I´m a northern german. You´ll find tons of strange names here, especially in the frisian regions. My Brother is named Jasper Rickmer and a sister Peerke Ragna. I have friends named Enno and Onno, Tjalk, Wiebke, Triesche, and so on. Have a nice day! Dettmar
I think Meike is a name that is only used in the German language and I have experienced that in English and Spanish speaking countries a lot of people struggle pronouncing my name. They always think it’s a name for boys and call me Michael 😂 then I always have to say: it’s a German name for girls
I know Manfred group the group in the Uk Manfred Man. Engelbert Humperdinck was a German Composer and his name was used by a British singer. Heinz Wolff was a German born British scientist
My first name is even for Germans unusual though it’s an old German one „Wichard“ literally translated to „Fight hard“. The syllable „Wic“ is also find in „Viking“. The more common name Richard means strong ruler and contains the syllable ric which is indoeuropean as in latin rex celtic rix french roi english royal hindi raj and german Reich. By the way the syllable Wal in Waltraut is related to war as in the german word Walstatt for a battle field after the battle filled with killed corpses. The souls of the dead Germanic warriors are then brought to Walhalla by the Walküren (Valkyries). The syllable traut means trust but also brave.
I've heard of most of these names, but I am from the UK. Manfred might be popular in Germany but anyone over a certain age, i.e old, will remember the English pop band from the 1960's Manfred Mann, named after the drummer, Manfred Mann, who was actually born in South Africa. The reincarnation of this band in the 1970's on onwards, is Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Gerd is a very well known name around the world, with football fans over a certain age, ie.e still old. Gerhard Müller, more commonly known has Gerd, was a Bayren Munich and West German player from the 1960's and 70's My own name originates from Greece
this is wrong. "Gatte" is clearly and definitely male. I know a lot of times the male form is used as a generic form, but that's not the case with the word "Gatte".
@@silkwesir1444 I meant that if you are speaking of a couple, you say "die Ehegatten Schmidt". When you are speaking of the wife alone you say Herr Schmitt and seine Gattin". It's not wrong in this part of the world but as we are finding out, they speak a completely different German in other parts of the country.
Gerd is also a Scandinavian name, albeit a feminine coded one with a different origin. It comes from the Old Norse word garðr. Something interesting about the name Siegfried is its Scandinavian cognate is a feminine-coded name, Sigfrid (also Sigrid, Sirid), which comes from Old Norse Sigfriðr.
Anny Penny The Beatles were also prior to my time and I know them ... 😇 But thanks for the information! Although I heard them live, I didn’t know Manfred was born in South Africa!
Bert and Berty are common English names. Käthe is pronounced almost exactly like Kate in English, and is essentially the same name. Both are short for Katherine.
My grandfather's name was Josef and we called him Jupp. I have never heard the name Cord. I know Kurt. What about the name Horst, have you heard that one?
Fun fact: Heinz‘ parents originally came from Kallstadt, Germany. And this town has an another famous citizen. And I won’t write down his name here. But the current president of USA has some roots in Kallstadt. His grandparents came also from this little town
I heard most of these names before, but not all. The Heinz brand was started by a family of that name, and one prominent member was even a US Senator, until he was killed when his a plane small plane he was traveling in crashed with a helicopter crash above an an elementary school in Pennsylvania. His window is currently married to former Senator and Secretary of State John Kerry. Rainer I probably heard about from the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke.
As a Swiss these names you mentioned are all very German to me. Apart from Verena, Moritz and Käthi, they aren't common. Fabio is a common name. Lothar is for me the huge storm from 1999 and Roswitha is the bartender in Harry Potter. The parents of my former boss were called Waltraud and Horst (both Germans). I always thought of Wald (forest) and the words Forst/Förster (forester) What was Heinz for you was Racoon for me. It was just a brand for a backpack for me.
Two of my best friends are brothers and one is called Max and the other is called Moritz .... Awesome !! Another friend is called Hannah and she studied in Japan. In Japan Hannah is not a name, it´s the word for flower. The Japanese kept saying that their name is so cute.
Interesting Video. As I am from Germany, i knew all the names except for Cord. Of course you can use the nickname "Berti" for everyone, who wants you to :) So if someone is called Robert or maybe just Bert, you might also here him say "My Friends call me Berti" or something like that :) I really like the Videos, where you tell us about the differences between Germany and the US. Keep up the good work :)
I was in Portugal with a church group and someone came up to the house where we were staying. I asked him "Como se chama você?" and he answered something I didn't understand. So I went in and got the missionariess, who lived there, and she asked the same question. She told me the man's name was "Delfim". I had never heard of this name before, though I knew that the crown prince of France was the Dauphin. "Berti" is Lojban for "north". Have you ever met anyone named Stuna, Snanu, or Stici?
In fact Heinz is just the german form of Henry. And the founder of the ketchup brand was "Henry John Heinz" :-D He was a son of a german immigrant and his father came vom Kallstadt, a city in Palatinate. And in fract the grandfather of the US-presdient Trump was a german from Kallstadt, too. And Henry Heinz and Friedrich Trump (the grandfather of Donald) were second cousins :-) And in fact Jupp is only a nickname, but is mostely used as a first name. Even the most famous "Jupp" - Jupp Heynckes (one of the most famous german socker coaches) - has official the name Josef, but everyone (even wikipedia: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupp_Heynckes) call him just Jupp.
Hey Dana, are you sure you mean “Cord” and not “Kurt”? Maybe it’s a regional thing, but I’ve never heard “Cord” being used as a name. For me Cord has always just meant corduroy fabric, haha.
de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cord_(Name)
@@Baccatube79 I had no idea :) it's super unusual though.
@@Stacybell92 not super unusual, but to me it sounds pretty much like Prussian landed gentry.
When you look at the list of famous namesakes on Wikipedia, they are really all from Lower Saxony, Hamburg, Hanover, Bremen... It is definitely a Northern German name.
I've never heard of Cord either, but it seems to be a thing.
Gatte is actually a short version of the word Ehegatte. Which means husband, like you said. There is also the word Gattin or Ehegattin, which means wife.
To be precise: "Gatte" was once a word for a companion in general, and "Ehegatte" was used to refer specifically to a spouse - a marital companion, if you will. However, the old, general meaning of "companion" for "Gatte" was lost over time, and it was soon only associated with the "spouse" meaning. The feminine forms are of course "Gattin" and "Ehegattin", but they presumably only date back to the 18th century. Before that, "Gatte" was the word for both men and women.
Folke Hoffmann I would have said “spouse”.
@@froedlmetallmann4643 exactly my thought.
@@froedlmetallmann4643 yeah you can say spouse as well as husband/wife. But with spouse it doesnt matter if you are referring to a man or a woman but with Gatte/Gattin it does.
"Gatte" is also an old fashioned way to say it, I think.
Most of the names are older, so not many young people have those names.
But I think many people are called Moritz here.
As a Siegfried (43 years old), I can say: Nobody at my age is named Siegfried. I should be my Grandfather
Obviously here that name is mostly known from Wilhelm Busch, but I think it is more popular in France than it is in Germany (as Maurice obviously).
When I read the name Carl Georg, I expected someone quite old. So I was surprised when I saw him.
Moritz is quite common in Switzerland too.
@@alexandrorocca7142 Ja ich habe auch gedacht, dass viele Leute in Deutschland so heißen aber vielleicht habe ich mich da auch unbewusst ein bisschen von der Schweiz beeinflussen lassen
Regarding Manfred: I am surprised that Dana never heard of the Band Manfred Mann's Earth Band, where she should have learned about that Firstname.
Regarding Gerhard: I love the old comedy western "The Halelujah Trail" (40 wagen westwärts) where Burt Lancaster plays Colonel Gearhard pronounced like the americanized version of the german Firstname.
And please change your pronounciation of Käthe! Do not name these girls a "chain" as Kette is pronounced with a short vowel where Käääääthe should be spoken slower with a looong vowel ;-)
thought the same 😉
ua-cam.com/video/lcWVL4B-4pI/v-deo.html
@@carbon-basedlifeform4314 You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn
( ua-cam.com/video/K13hH0pJx5s/v-deo.html )
I never heard of them. You have to think what age she is. 1970's music was awhile ago. Also not all music that was popular in Europe made it across the Atlantic. If they did make it across the Atlantic they were a 1 hit wonder SOMETIMES. UB40 Red Red Wine is the 1 hit wonder that comes to my mind. I moved to Switzerland and was shocked they weren't a 1 hit wonder here.
Bliiiinded by the light... I will be struggling to get this song outa my mind now lol
Liselotte, Waltraud, Berthold are old names, which are coming up now again.
Cord - for my opinion - is more used in Northern Germany.
Don’t worry about not knowing about Gatte. I had the same confusion with the term Hubby for husband.
It sounds like someone from "The Hub".
The Name Manfred is in History Books. The RED BARON's name was Manfred.
Cord? I live in Germany and have never heard that name in my life.
I have, a friend of mine is called Cord.
Cord is more of a Northern German Name. Just like Xaver ist more like a Southern German Name and the Abbreviation Jupp for Joseph is very common in the Rhineland Region.
Kinala Nela „Latten Jupp“ is a prerogative name for Jesus on the cross. www.mundmische.de/bedeutung/1346-Lattenjupp
Jupp was often used in the Rhineland or Ruhr area.
Kurt?
Ich kenne einen Cord.
Berti kann be short for any name with the syllable "Bert" in it. Bertolt, Hubert, Engelbert, Gosbert... the names combined of Germanic name syllables are a bit on the retreat these days, they were chic in the 1920s to 1950s but lost drive afterwards.
And there is a reason for their popularity: everyone wanted their kids to be super german by default. Either because they were proud of it or just wanted to erase all doubt when the Nazis came around. Was safer for the kids to have an "arian" name.
@@meplays5269 Err... they were just fashionable. Zeitgeist, you know. They existed before the nazis, and they were around after them, and maybe they'll be back one of these days. Like, when I was a kid, Emma, Frieda, and Lina were names for old spinsters - today, they are hipster girls' names.
Robert
If not from Germanic, the Latin Lambertus could also be an origin. At least in the Netherlands Bert is a common name.
That syllable Bert is derived from old german "beraht" (meaning radiant, splendid). Combined with "Rhaban" (=Raven) it would become "Robert", and "Engelbert" would be connected to the Angles, the germanic tribe that mixed with the saxons in Britain.
As for Käthe: You pronounce it as "Kette". Try coming from the English pronunciation of "Caity" and make it a short "e" at the end as in the English name "Kade". Then you just need to slightly elongate the "ay" sound in the middle and you are at "Käthe".
Moin Dana, danke, dass Du meinen Namen so magst 🤗. Ich habe gelernt, dass das die Verkleinerung des Namens Maria ist und aus dem Friesischen kommt. Ich bin sehr froh über die Wahl meiner Eltern 😊
Isn't the mammoth in Ice Age called Manfred in English?
II looked it up. His name is "Manny," which according to wikipedia is short for Manuel, not Manfred, in the english language.
I thought that to.
@@LaS195 You looked it up wrong, his name is indeed Manfred. "Manny", yes, but his name is Manfred.
@@boombaby1769 Can you please tell me your source? I refer to the English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Age_(2002_film)), it never says Manfred.
@@LaS195 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ice_Age_characters#Manny I never knew that either.
There's a lot of names you mentioned that I know from famous people: Manfred Mai, Waltraud Meier, Verena Aschauer, Moritz Bleibtreu, Hildegard von Bingen, Jupp Heynckes, Käthe Kollwitz. There's a German movie call 'Free Rainer' coincidentally starring Moritz Bleibtreu. Siegfried will always remind me of Der Ring des Nibelungen. There's also a brand called Engelbert Strauss, that's the first thing that came to mind when you mentioned the name.
Engelbert Humperdinck - but known only to fans of classical music.
Love that video!
Verena sounds Italian to me, and, appropriately, it's derived from Latin "verus".
Just learned that Meike is a north German form of Maria - Mary.
Many of the names you mentioned have origins in the ancient languages of Old High German and Middle High German with powerful translations. For instance, Berthold is "glänzender Herrscher" = "shining emperor".
Käthe = Katharina => Kathrin, -chen being the diminuitive. For perfection, just pronounce it with a long "ä", "Kääthe"
Fun fact: Heinz ketchup was invented by Henry (Heinrich=Heinz) John (=Johannes=Hans) Heinz, son of German immigrants to the USA.
Hey, my name is Verena and I think it's a Swiss name. At least there are lots of people called Verena in Swizerland😁
Ich bin Deutsche und habe den Namen Cord bis zu diesem Video noch nie gehört 😅
Na ja, die Norddeutschen oder auch Kölner haben ab und zu komische Namen. Ich kenne einen Kölner der "Menno" heißt.
Mein Vorname ist Helge - ich bin männlich. Den Namen gibt es auch öfter in Deutschland und ich kenne auch eine Frau, die den Namen Helge hat, wobei es bei Frauen auch den Namen Helga gibt (HelgE - HelgA). Mein name kann also sowohl von Frauen, als auch von Männern benutzt werden.
Die Leute mit dem Namen Kim hassen diese Tatsache. 😁😁😁
Interesting... Moritz, Meike, Reiner and Jupp exist in Dutch as well, just as Maurits, Maaike, Reinier and Joep or Youp. Gerd also exists in Dutch, like former mayor of Maastricht Gerd Leers, although it's more frequently spelled with a _t_ instead of a _d_, like in my name Gertjan. Lieselotte also exists in Dutch, although parts of the name are more frequently used: Lies or Lotte.
Another one I was surprised to find in German is Bente, which I'd always presumed was really Dutch. Odd, that :)
well, German and Dutch are closely related, so I don't think that's very surprising.
I live in Germany close to the border to NL. To me Dutch sounds like Hochdeutsch (German) Plattdeutsch (old "traditional" regional german) and English combined. Even before I learned Dutch I could read a lot of it because it's so similar :)
and then my name, Joop :)
Jupp or Sepp, full form of the name should be: Joseph. But I dont know Jupp or Sepp as given names.
I’m from USA and lived in Deutschland from 2001-2004 and first heard the name “Katherina” aka “Kati” when I lived there and totally fell in love with it! I named my first daughter Katherina and she is almost 16 years old now!! I’ve wanted to move back to Deutschland every since but haven’t been able to... yet!!
I BET you have heard of the name ending -bert before: Think of "Robert"! I guess "Berti" is short for any name with "bert" in it and there are LOTS: Bertram, Hubert, Herbert, Norbert, Gilbert, Dagobert ...
Most of the names you mentioned are very common, but only for old people (with the exception of Meike/Maike and Moritz who are still quite popular). They are mostly Germanic names which got out of fashion about 50 years ago so hardly any younger German has those names anymore. But there are a few which are coming back nowadays, like Friedrich or Paul or Karl.
Engelbert Humperdinck is a word wide known Name. Berti is often used for Herbert not really for Engelbert which to my knowledge is never shortened
Besides Verena, Meike und Moritz these names are only common for middle aged people or elders. But some of them are popular baby names again, for example Kurt (i dont think anyone writes it Cord)
The name "Lieselotte" is featured in Erich Kästner's book "Das doppelte Lottchen" ("Lottie and Lisa" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottie_and_Lisa) where parents name there twin girls Liese and Lotte splitting their granny's name Lieselotte. The story has been adapted as "The Parent Trap" movies in 1961 (featuring Hayley Mills) and again in 1998 (featuring Lindsay Lohan).
Ouch! Of course "their" twins...
I'm neither German nor in Germany. However, I work at a university and deal with research publications all day, primarily but not exclusively ones written in English. So due to my work, I had seen several of these names before, however I had no idea what language these names were associated with or whether they were common or not.
Moritz = Maurice, and, yes, it is totally common.
Maurice oder Morris
Wilhelm Busch: Max und Moritz ... most famous good-night stories for German children
= Mauritius (if blue, it might be very precious) obviously a name from the Roman era (St. Maurice, often depicted as a black man like in Magdeburg Cathedral)
@@thkempe and he is, as far as I know, the patron saint of the pharmacists which is why there are so many "Mohren-Apotheken" in Germany.
@@Baccatube79 I haven't heard about the "Pillendreher" thing yet.
Cord is new for me. I am Austrian. Your Käthe sounds like Kette. But all others were perfect. :)
Maybe she means Kurt
Im also from Austria and i knew Cord! Are we in the same country?;-))))
@@WienerVL keine Ahnung, meine Kindheit war in den 70ern, und da hatten alle klassiche Namen :)
Das stand eindeutig Cord C O R D.
@@irenestrau9902 Das sind beides Kurzformen von Konrad, aber ich würde vermuten, dass Cord im norddeutschen Raum verbreiteter ist.
To answer your central question: YES, I´ve heard all of those and it makes me wonder that even some of them are that unknown abroad.
Pretty shure, that you can find some heritages for all of them (digging deep enough), that you can link to an actual american equivalent?
Btw, I really love that courious joy you seem to have while exploring new things.Please don´t lose it.
Käthe is pronounced with a long Ä. This sound is a little confusing because Germans don't really agree on how to pronounce it: For some it's the same as long E, for some it's like the short Ä just pronounced longer.
Yup, the way you pronounce it, it sounds like Kette meaning necklace :D
It's really quite similar to the English Kate....
Check out Käthe Kruse, she "invented" the first dolls for Children.
You have never heard of Manfred Mann's Earth Band? (Mighty Quinn, Blinded By The Light, Pretty Flamingo, Ha Ha Said The Clown, Doo Wah Diddy ...)
Meike or Maike is a girl's name of - if I remember that right - old German/ Frisian origin. Male versions would be Meik/Maik or Meiko. Those names with -gard or -hold are probably of Germanic origin. Käthe is a nick name for Katharina or Katharine (my God mother's name is Katharina but everyone just calls her Käthe), same goes for Änne, which could be one for Anne or Anna. Käthchen or Ännchen are diminutive versions to those, they could both be used to endear or belittle someone or something (like many names/words with -chen or -lein, or in Swiss Getman probably - li). And I'm pretty sure Bert or Berti could be nicknames for any (male name) with "Bert", regardless of it's position in the full name ^^'
On that note: I am frequently confused by the use of the name Gretchen (and its americanized pronunciation) in US movies. Apart from its appearence in Goethes "Faust" it is fairly uncommon in Germany, let alone as a (full) given name, probably because of that "belittling" ring it has to it.
In Northern Germany we have some nice names: Bente, Fenja, Frieda, Jana, Jule, Nele (all female), Heiko, Henning, Jan, Jannis, Jens, Lasse, Nils, Fabian, Sören, Uwe (male)
Nele is just short for Cornelia, and I find it very childish to call a girl thus without the option of having a grown-up name. Same counts for Jule (Julia) A woman from her 20s onwards shouldn't have a baby name...
Fabian is a Roman/Latin name and is not explicitly Northern German. Jannis is the transcription of Γιάννης, the Greek form of Johannes, and thus not Northern, either.
@@Baccatube79 All of those are among the most common names in Northern Germany, including Fabian and Jannis (they exist elsewhere as well but that wasn't the point). And Nele in that form constantly tops the charts of names in Hamburg, so no, it's not just short for Cornelia (anymore). And Jule is so common for young women I have NO idea what you are talking about.
I would say, out of those names, only Bente, Fenja, (maybe) Frieda, Lasse and Sören are truly typical for northern (northwest to be exact) Germany. I've lived in Thuringia, Saxony, Berlin and now Mecklenburg and all those other names are really common throughout.
@@Baccatube79 I never knew that Nele is short for Cornelia. Here in Belgium I don't know anyone who's called Cornelia, but I know serveral who are called Nele. It is a common name here. Nobody sees it as a childish name.
@@stefanmeinicke4239 I know Lasse through my contact to sweden, and find out this is a swedish form to Lars (Lauretius) , like Sebbe is Sebastian, Bosse -Bo, Mikke-Michael etc.
Verena is actually derived from Greek „pherenike“ (the one that brings victory), and is this actually related to the brand „Nike“, which is the name of the Greek goddess of victory.
yes, everyone having a 'bert' in their name can be called 'Berti' (Engelbert, Adalbert, Berthold, Bertram, Herbert/Heribert, or even the english 'Gilbert') but I don't think it's an 'eingetragener Name', only a Nickname like Jupp for Josef/Joseph
And Meike/Maike is a female name as far as I know and not genderneutral. Also, if you give your child a genderneutral name like Robin or Kim you must add another name which is NOT genderneutral so that you can tell a persons gender based on their names for example: If you name your kid Robyn you have to give the child a second name like Robyn Maximilian or Robyn Heidi etc. etc. (I personally think that rule should be abolished)
Ernie und Bert :)
As a German I never heard of the name "Cord". But it makes absolutely sense that it is a short version of Conrad/Konrad.
I would say all of them except the abbreviations like Cord oder Jupp are common in Germany. Most of them are names of the around 50's Generation... Many names have "generation cycles" here, means they become popular again after being "out" for 1 to 3 generations. An example is Quirin; Quirins nowadays are either in their 80's or just had their 5th birthday...
"Jupp" is very common in the Ruhr region, but only as a short version of "Josef" or "Joseph". The brother of my (Friederike) father was named "Joseph", but everyone called him "Jupp". A famous example for "Jupp" is German soccer trainer Jupp Heynckes, but he was actually christened Joseph too.
Like Uwe and Dirk in the end 60s early 70s and today totally unusual.
@@BaldJean Totally agree. In Bavaria he would have been called Sepp.
Quirin?! Seriously?! Must be a Bavarian thing i guess, like Severin and Korbinian and the like..., yes I know a 5 year old Korbinian in Bavaria, lol
Lieselotte is my grandmother's name, it comes from Elisabeth (Liese/Lisa) and Charlotte. 😉
old german names often consist of two parts having a distinct meaning. So you can combine Fried-, Adel, Bald-, Bert-, Kuni-, Ehren-, even Hilde- (and more) with -bert, -helm, rich to get male names, or with -linde, -lotte, -liese, -trude, -hilde (and more) to get female names. see wikipedia for it :)
Light and Fluffy, just what I needed
Hey Dana, I think Cord is a very pretty or handsome name and always thought so since first stumbling upon a Cord (around the age of 22 and having spent most of these 22 years in Germany). I didn't know though (or probably forgot) that historically it comes from Conrad and carries the same meaning! So thanks for the (re-)enlightenment! :-)
Most of the names you mentioned are Germanic names. They are less common now and mostly associated with older people. Germanic names tend to consist of one or two elements that signify positive character traits the parents wanted the child to have or things they wished upon them. Most of them have to do with war because the Germanic tribes were pretty busy conquering Europe in the olden days. I put the modern German and/or English words in parenthesis to explain the meaning. Of course the names did not necessarily all come up at the same time and language is constantly evolving, so some elements look different at different starting points. To get to their modern forms, these names often went through a millennium of language change, so they might have looked and sounded a bit different at the beginning.
magan (Mann/man - in the sense of manliness/strength) + frid (Frieden/peace) = Maganfrid = Manfred
ragin (Rat/advice) + hari (Heer/army) = Raganhar = Rainer
ragin (Rat/advice) + hard (hart/hardy, tough) = Raginhard = Reinhard
ger (Speer/spear) + hard (hart/hardy, tough) = Gerhard
kuoni (kühn/brave) + rad (Rat/advice) = Kuonirad = Konrad
hlud (laut/loud in the sense of famous, well known) + hari (Heer/army) = Hludhari = Lothar
sieg (Sieg/victory) + frid (Frieden/peace) = Siegfried
hrod (Ruhm/fame) + swinth (geschwind/swift, the meaning leaning more towards strong at that point though) = Hrodswintha = Roswitha
ermen (alle/all) + gard (Garten/guarded in the sense of a protected enclosure) = Ermengard = Irmgard
wald (Gewalt, walten/power, ruler) + Thrud (a very strong daughter of Thor) = Waldthrud = Waltraud
odal (the rune for inheritance) + ric (reich/rich) = Odalric = Ulrich (m)/Ulrike (f)
hild (-/war,battle) + gard (Garten/guarded in the sense of a protected enclosure) = Hildegard
heim (Heim/home) + ric (reich/rich) = Heimric = Heinrich, shortend to Heinz in some regions
Karl (Kerl/strong guy)
Bert (-/bright)
engel (Engel/angel) + bert (-/bright) = Engelbert
So now you already have some puzzle pieces to make new names, some of them might sound familiar:
ger (Speer/spear) + Thrud (a very strong daughter of Thor) = Gertrud
hari (Heer/army) + bert (-/bright) = Herbert
hrod (Ruhm/fame) + bert (-/bright) = Hrodbert = Robert
hrod (Ruhm/fame) + ric (reich/rich) = Hrodric = Roderich which became Rodrigo in Spanish and Roderick in English
ric (reich/rich) + hard (hart/hardy, tough) = Richard
wald (Gewalt, walten/power, ruler) + hari (Heer/army) = Waldhari = Walther
This turned into quite the deep dive, my apologies! Have fun discovering more of these when seeing names anywhere from now on :D
The other names you mentioned are "imported" names. Most of them came into German with the rise of Christianity because people started naming their kids after saints and bible characters.
Berti is also short for Herbert (and any other name with 'bert' in it). My grandpas name is Herbert but he doesn't like "Berti" so he gets called "Heppy" (pronounced like "happy") by everyone.
Have you ever met or heard the names Beke (f), Sören (m), Dörte (f), Mats (m), Frauke (f), Arne (m), Traudel (f) or Eberhard (m)? In my opinion these are some pretty unusual names to foreigners.
*I know at least one person with each name who is younger than 30.
Ehegatte is an oldish word for Ehemann. I've born and lived in Germany all my life but I've never heard the name Cord before I watched your video. Hope you and yours are well. You're getting through this together, even if you're apart. Big hugs from me.
Die Bezeichnung "Gatte" für Ehemann, fand ich schon immer gruselig😁
Ja! Ich denke da immer an "begatten". 😝
In Käthe, and Käthchen, the Umlaut has a long „ä“-sound
Britta Feyerabend Like in „Käse“
when you say man, like maaaaaan, in American English, maybe you can use that a as the ä for Käthe
das "ä" wäre kurz, wenn zwei gleiche Konsonanten folgen würden; ist aber nicht, deswegen lang!
"Have you heard of these names before"? Yes. My grandmother's name made your list. Fun video!
Mine too
In Austria, the nickname for somebody called „Joseph“ would be „Peppi“ or „Sepp“
In Switzerland it is Sepp. Most famous person would be Sepp Blatter former Fifa President.
I've also heard Joshi.
I think a lot of kids that were born in 97/98/99 got named Moritz, because i guess that was just a popular name to give your kid at that time. At least i had a lot of Moritzs in all the years i went to school and i was born in 98 :)
My cousins in Germany are 13 years younger and I participated in their first day of school and all their classmates have really old fashioned American names from the siblings of my American grandma!
In Switzerland "Verena" is often shortened to "Vreni". Do you know the name "Ullrich"? That one is often shortened to "Ueli" here.
Hans - Ueli
My name is Elias, in my generation it was very rare. But nowadays there are so much Elias in Germany. It is a verry common neme now.
Hey, don't you know the British pop star, Manfred Mann? "Pretty Flamingo", "Do wah diddy diddy", ...
Meike, either with an e or an a (Maike) are girls names. For Jupp (pronounce the u like the two os in school), Jupp Hainkes was a trainer of a soccerteam, Jupp is mostly common in the northern part of germany.
Meike/Maike is usually considered female but Eike is male, though quite uncommon.
Irmgard was my great grandmother and Waltraut her sister :D
Another topic you might find interesting are the different writing of names depending on location. Former west Germany: Mike. Former east Germany: Maik.
Käthe: you need a longer Ä,softer t, right now you are saying Kette and Kettchen :)
Meike rings a bell. It the origin Dutch? Mieke in Dutch? Who knows?
Eike is not necessarily male. I used to know a girl called Eike.
in polish we have a female name Maja which has diminutive Majka : ) all of the polish female names have A at the end, but it's practically the same name.
One can say, names ending with "-ke" are most likely to be female, though there are exceptions. Like Eike, which can be both genders, though I now more males called Eike than females. But Silke, Ulrike, Maike/Meike, Wiebke, Heike, Frauke, Anke or Friederike are all female names, all ending with "-ke"
Come to Friesland and you'll think differently. Bauke, Akke, Eelke, Gerke, Fokke, Auke, Hielke are all Frisian boy names.
I agree that Lieselotte is a sweet name. For me, it will forever be linked to Swiss actress Lieselotte Pulver, nicknamed "Lilo", because I grew up watching the German version of Sesame Street when Lilo Pulver was a regular on the show.
You never knew Bertolt Brecht, the German playwright and poet? I can't say I was super familiar with him, but I knew the name. He is mostly just used as a passing reference, though, in movies and television, usually by his surname. If you haven't seen the German film The Lives Of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) one of the Stasi agents reads a Brecht work. Great movie that received the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
By the way, I have been bingeing your older videos, and now know why your name is pronounced the way it is. It was driving me crazy so now I can move on.
I have a colleague named "Rainer" and the name of my a deceased uncle was "Reiner". Another "Reiner" is "Reiner Calmund", at present a manager of Laverkusen soccer team ("Bayer Leverkusen"). And perhaps you have heard about the singer / songwriter "Reinhard May". So theese are 3 different names.
Dana, There used to be a German restaurant in Tequesta, about 30ish miles from your old home in Florida. The owners were Horst & Verena. BTW, Horst is a name I've never heard anywhere else. I was sad to discover the restaurant had closed about 15 or 20 years ago.
You must have heard of Bert right? If you have ever watched Sesame Street.
Or Mary Poppins, for that matter.
But is his name Berthold or Engelbert? :-D
Bert the cop, played by Ward Bond in "It's a Wonderful Life".
Bertie, the nickname of King Edward VII. of England.
Strangely enough, one of my favorite movies as a young child was the WWII movie "The Enemy Below" with Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens. I always remember the sturdy first mate on the German submarine named "Heinie", a nickname for Heinz, I'm sure. I never knew what the words were to the morale-lifting song the Germans sang as they were engaging in their cat-and-mouse attacks with the American destroyer, but I knew that it was an act of bravado in the face of terror and possible death. A similar movie, "Das Boot", was entirely in German with subtitles.
A funny one is "Dieter" (from "Dietrich"). Then there are some hard to pronounce names like Achim, Joachim or Jürgen. Sometimes you find "germanized" versions, like "Maik" instead of "Mike". When I was a child I didn't like my name "Daniel", but today I'm glad it's common and easy to pronounce in English.
As a Belgian,I feel like 80% of these names are the typical names we think of when we think of German names.
As a Swiss I think these are very German names. Apart from Moritz, Verena and Käthi (short for Katharina) these names aren't common in Switzerland.
@@Leenapanther We have Moritz and Kathy here in Belgium too.
They're quite old names though, I reckon, and probably the reason why a Belg/Belge/Belgier (or anyone else) would think of them when it comes to German names... :)
Leenapanther that‘s funny because as a german, I would say that Moritz and Verena are the only modern and at this time often used names. Most of the other names are really „old“ - like you would expect that anyones grandma is named like this but literally no one who is younger than 70.
By the way, I never heard the name Dana before.
Jupp is an abbreviation of Joseph used in the northern Rhineland. It is not an official name. Formerly a very common name, but today not used so often.
One thing I stumbled on: The "ä" in Käthe and Käthchen is spoken long, otherwise it sounds like "Fahrradkette" ("bicycle chain"). Käthe is the abbreviation of Katharina or Kathrin, but it is an official name.
There is an old rule of behaviour, that probably no one remembers (Knigge died a long time ago): You never say "mein Gatte", but "mein Mann". A third person would say to you "Ihr Gatte" and not "Ihr Mann", if he wants to be polite. The same with "Gattin / Frau". If I would say "meine Gattin", I would be polite to myself, and that's "affig" (I can't translate this word, may be "artily"?)
Late comment: "Käthe", like "Moritz", is also just a germanized name, this time its origin is late classical greek "Katharina" - or Catherine in english. With the spread of Christianity the name became popular in all of Europe with local forms like "Kate", "Katrin", "Carina", "Yekaterina", "Kitty", "Aikaterine", "Caitlyn", "Katia", "Karen", "Katlyn", "Katinka", "Katrianna" or "Kathareu" (amongst hundreds more).
I am an American and I have heard some of these names before. My mother’s younger sister is name Bertie. Even though her real name is Evelyn Roberta. But everyone has always called her Bertie. And Dana I find it very hard to believe that you have never heard of the name Siegfried before you move to Germany. I guess you never heard of the famous Las Vegas magician act Siegfried and Roy before. And just like Siegfried I also find it hard to believe that you never heard of the name Hildegard before. I guess with me being part German and Austrian those names are just very common to me.
First of all thank YOU for your last video. It's good to hear that we share the same fears and thoughts. Anyway some of the names you say in this video were new to me. When I hear Hildegard, I think of Olaf because there is a scene in Frozen 2 where he's searching for a Hildegard (at least in German) 😂😂
American here: first time I heard the name Manfred was when I was a child, from Manfred Mann the English Band with the classic 80’s hit “Blinded By The Light”. Then I’ve heard it a few other times in my life here in the US. It’s not very common but it’s definitely not unheard of here. Mika is also a decently common name here now too. I grew up with a girl named Reina, also not very common but not unheard of. Also Cord I’ve hear in movies used as a name over the years. Also, there was a very famous singer from back in the day named Englebert Humperdink.
Dana, me thinks that your life growing up here in the US was a bit sheltered 😂 Or maybe it’s just my being from NYC, the melting pot of the world, I’ve been exposed to more international names. I don’t know which, but it’s one or the other. But another fun video either way ❤️😘
regarding the name Heinz: It's quite common that a name ends up being part of a brands name. The Heinz company was named after the founder Henry John Heinz (Heinz can be a first and a surname, in this case it was the surname). Funnily Heinz fusioned with another company also named after its founder: James Lewis Kraft and Kraft foods.
There are acutally a lot of companies, that follow this rule, like Henry Ford - Ford automobile company, Karl Albrecht - Aldi (Albrecht Discount), HERmann TIEtz (Hertie), Johann Riegel - Haribo (Hans Riegel Bonn, Hans was the nickname of Johann, Bonn is the location of the first factory in Germany) or Daimler-Benz (fusion of Gottlieb Daimler - Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and Carl Benz - Benz & Cie), even their most famous product, the Mercedes, is named after a person (Mercédès Jellinek, daughter of Emil Jellinek, a big customer of DMG).
Try listenning to the Oldies from the 50's and 60's and you will have a very new variety of german names like Anneliese, Margot, Catharina, Marita, Rosita, Lotte, Elfriede, Hannes, Huber ...
Wow, you mentioned my grandmother's, grandfather's, mother's and brother's name. The last one has a slightly other spelling and it's not very common, I'd say. But it was in your video! 🙂
The Manfred Mann also had a number one hit in the US Charts. Do wah diddy. Cats often named Moritz in Germany
At our school here in Germany there are at least two People named "Moritz", so it is in some places a common name. :)
I have a good friend in the Paderborn area named "Moritz". He has a cousin named "Hauke" and that cousin's father's name is Volker. also a good friend. His brother's name is "Leonard" and he goes by "Lenni". I got used to all those names over the years.
Manfred Mann's Earth Band!
Born in Germany and living here for over 50 years now, I never ever heard Cord as a name before. For me Cord is a kind of fabric you make trousers of.
As a Dutch, Manfred definitely sound typical German, Meike is common in the Netherlands, as well as Gerd/Gert/Gerard. Lieselotte/liselotte is pretty common here as well.
dear dana, th fluffy, light and funny things are cute, when you do them, you're a wonderful person, love to listen to you.. and yes, the serious things impress me, too...blessed week to both of you...
I am quite puzzled on how you can not know the name Manfred. It is known even in the US. What about Manfred Mann? Or Manfred the Mammoth from Ice Age?
I have heard Moritz before. Now Lieselotte is my German name hhhhh thx for sharing this gorgeous name 🥰🥰
39 years ago I was born in Germany and nearly all my life I lived here- and I never heard "Cord" as a name. I only know "Corduroy pants" (Cordhosen). All the other names I know.
Names I heard for the first time when I was aduld: Reinhild, Mats, Bela, Wendelin, Silas,, Euthymia, Praxedis, Malou, Tialda,
Sometimes we have different short forms for the same long name, and these are often regional. For example, where I come from, "Konrad" becomes "Kor" (with a long o, like "Kohr"). "Georg" can be shortened to "Schorsch" or "Gerch" or "Gorch". Waltraud can be "Wally" or "Traudl". Be sure to pronounce them all in the German way :-) Yes, you can also have the short form as the official name.
(You mentioned half of my kinship here.)
Roswitha -> Hrotswith von Gandersheim, nun and first female German poet in the 10th century AD
Manfred -> King of Sicily (killed 1266, Hohenstaufen dynasty), the Italian city "Manfredonia" is named after him.
Heinz (= Heinrich, very common name for German kings) and Cord (= Conrad, Konrad also a very common name of the medieval kings here). These names must have become so popular in Germany that their short variants "Hinz und Kunz" stand for "everyone" (pejorative, just like "Krethi und Plethi", a biblical term).
My aunt moved from Germany to the USA when she was an young woman. Her name is Waltraud, but everybody calls her Traudi.
Hi Dana, I´m a northern german. You´ll find tons of strange names here, especially in the frisian regions. My Brother is named Jasper Rickmer and a sister Peerke Ragna. I have friends named Enno and Onno, Tjalk, Wiebke, Triesche, and so on.
Have a nice day!
Dettmar
I think Meike is a name that is only used in the German language and I have experienced that in English and Spanish speaking countries a lot of people struggle pronouncing my name. They always think it’s a name for boys and call me Michael 😂 then I always have to say: it’s a German name for girls
Then call yourself May or Mia.
I know Manfred group the group in the Uk Manfred Man. Engelbert Humperdinck was a German Composer and his name was used by a British singer. Heinz Wolff was a German born British scientist
My first name is even for Germans unusual though it’s an old German one „Wichard“ literally translated to „Fight hard“. The syllable „Wic“ is also find in „Viking“. The more common name Richard means strong ruler and contains the syllable ric which is indoeuropean as in latin rex celtic rix french roi english royal hindi raj and german Reich. By the way the syllable Wal in Waltraut is related to war as in the german word Walstatt for a battle field after the battle filled with killed corpses. The souls of the dead Germanic warriors are then brought to Walhalla by the Walküren (Valkyries). The syllable traut means trust but also brave.
I know a few here in my little village on the Mediterranean, Ulrike, and Gudrun are among them.
I've heard of most of these names, but I am from the UK.
Manfred might be popular in Germany but anyone over a certain age, i.e old, will remember the English pop band from the 1960's Manfred Mann, named after the drummer, Manfred Mann, who was actually born in South Africa. The reincarnation of this band in the 1970's on onwards, is Manfred Mann's Earth Band.
Gerd is a very well known name around the world, with football fans over a certain age, ie.e still old. Gerhard Müller, more commonly known has Gerd, was a Bayren Munich and West German player from the 1960's and 70's
My own name originates from Greece
Someone may have said this but Gatte is not just "husband" but "spouse". If it's the wife alone, it's "Gattin"
this is wrong. "Gatte" is clearly and definitely male. I know a lot of times the male form is used as a generic form, but that's not the case with the word "Gatte".
@@silkwesir1444 I meant that if you are speaking of a couple, you say "die Ehegatten Schmidt". When you are speaking of the wife alone you say Herr Schmitt and seine Gattin". It's not wrong in this part of the world but as we are finding out, they speak a completely different German in other parts of the country.
Gerd is also a Scandinavian name, albeit a feminine coded one with a different origin. It comes from the Old Norse word garðr. Something interesting about the name Siegfried is its Scandinavian cognate is a feminine-coded name, Sigfrid (also Sigrid, Sirid), which comes from Old Norse Sigfriðr.
Don’t you know „Manfred Mann‘s Earth Band“?
Manfred Mann was born in South Africa and Manfred Mann‘s Earth Band was prior to her time...
Anny Penny The Beatles were also prior to my time and I know them ... 😇 But thanks for the information! Although I heard them live, I didn’t know Manfred was born in South Africa!
Bert and Berty are common English names.
Käthe is pronounced almost exactly like Kate in English, and is essentially the same name. Both are short for Katherine.
My grandfather's name was Josef and we called him Jupp. I have never heard the name Cord. I know Kurt. What about the name Horst, have you heard that one?
Fun fact: Heinz‘ parents originally came from Kallstadt, Germany. And this town has an another famous citizen. And I won’t write down his name here. But the current president of USA has some roots in Kallstadt. His grandparents came also from this little town
I heard most of these names before, but not all. The Heinz brand was started by a family of that name, and one prominent member was even a US Senator, until he was killed when his a plane small plane he was traveling in crashed with a helicopter crash above an an elementary school in Pennsylvania. His window is currently married to former Senator and Secretary of State John Kerry. Rainer I probably heard about from the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke.
As a Swiss these names you mentioned are all very German to me. Apart from Verena, Moritz and Käthi, they aren't common.
Fabio is a common name. Lothar is for me the huge storm from 1999 and Roswitha is the bartender in Harry Potter.
The parents of my former boss were called Waltraud and Horst (both Germans). I always thought of Wald (forest) and the words Forst/Förster (forester)
What was Heinz for you was Racoon for me. It was just a brand for a backpack for me.
All of these names are very old
Normaly grandmother's and grandfather's had such a name
Two of my best friends are brothers and one is called Max and the other is called Moritz .... Awesome !!
Another friend is called Hannah and she studied in Japan.
In Japan Hannah is not a name, it´s the word for flower.
The Japanese kept saying that their name is so cute.
Interesting Video. As I am from Germany, i knew all the names except for Cord. Of course you can use the nickname "Berti" for everyone, who wants you to :) So if someone is called Robert or maybe just Bert, you might also here him say "My Friends call me Berti" or something like that :)
I really like the Videos, where you tell us about the differences between Germany and the US. Keep up the good work :)
Perhaps one needs to be of a certain age to know about Engelbert Humperdinck.
Which I only discovered recently wasn't his real name. That was Arnold George Dorsey! He renamed himself after a German composer
For me, Humperdinck will be always be the bad guy from The Princess Bride.
Do you know Engelbert Humperdinck is a German Composer 1854 to 1821?
@@auntyangie33
It is also the alias of Arnold George Dorsey
@@auntyangie33 1854 to 1921🙂
I was in Portugal with a church group and someone came up to the house where we were staying. I asked him "Como se chama você?" and he answered something I didn't understand. So I went in and got the missionariess, who lived there, and she asked the same question. She told me the man's name was "Delfim". I had never heard of this name before, though I knew that the crown prince of France was the Dauphin.
"Berti" is Lojban for "north". Have you ever met anyone named Stuna, Snanu, or Stici?
Great video again! 👍🏻 But if you haven’t heard Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Blinded By The Light, you must be from another planet 😄
In fact Heinz is just the german form of Henry. And the founder of the ketchup brand was "Henry John Heinz" :-D He was a son of a german immigrant and his father came vom Kallstadt, a city in Palatinate. And in fract the grandfather of the US-presdient Trump was a german from Kallstadt, too. And Henry Heinz and Friedrich Trump (the grandfather of Donald) were second cousins :-)
And in fact Jupp is only a nickname, but is mostely used as a first name. Even the most famous "Jupp" - Jupp Heynckes (one of the most famous german socker coaches) - has official the name Josef, but everyone (even wikipedia: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupp_Heynckes) call him just Jupp.