German heraldry was never reserved for the nobility. From the 14th century burghers and other townspeople in German lands bore coats of arms, so many German families had “burgher arms” (bürgerliche Wappen) that belonged to a particular family line. The classic reference is Siebmacher’s Wappenbuch, first printed in 1605. German surnames themselves took shape roughly 700 to 800 years ago, most of the commonest ones began as job titles (Müller, Schmidt, Schneider), and millions of German-speaking emigrants later left for America through Bremen and Hamburg.
Burgher arms: heraldry beyond the nobility
In England, arms came to be tightly controlled by the Crown’s heralds. German-speaking Europe took a different path. Heraldry spread from knights to townspeople in the 14th century, and in 1440 the Castilian writer Diego de Valera observed that in France and Germany burghers commonly took arms as they pleased.
Some of their imagery came from everyday life. The heraldist Ströhl, author of the Heraldischer Atlas (1899) and quoted by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies in 1909, describes the old house and home marks that landowners, tradesmen and artisans used on their property and goods, and notes that when such families were raised to the nobility, they carried these signs into their shields as heraldic charges.
Burgher arms were family property, much like noble arms. One surname could be shared by several families with completely different arms, and a single family could split into branches marked by different crests. Fox-Davies points out that in German heraldry a change of crest was often the only distinction between branches, and that Siebmacher’s Wappenbuch shows thirty-one branches of the Zorn family with different crests. If you are new to the parts of an achievement, see coat of arms vs. family crest.
Siebmacher’s Wappenbuch
Johann Siebmacher (1561–1611) was a heraldic artist, engraver and publisher in Nuremberg. His New Wapenbuch of 1605 contained 3,320 fully illustrated coats of arms. Later publishers kept expanding it, and the Raspe edition with its supplements (1753–1806) reached about 19,000 arms.
The New Siebmacher (J. Siebmacher’s grosses und allgemeines Wappenbuch) was begun in 1854 and, organised largely by region and by class of family, eventually ran to 101 volumes. It includes volumes of burgher arms; the heraldist Ottfried Neubecker later published all of its burgher arms as an illustrated lexicon arranged by heraldic charge. A general index by Hanns Jäger-Sunstenau covers about 130,000 names across every Siebmacher edition from 1605 onward.
How to use it well:
- Search the index for your surname, then note every entry. The same name often appears more than once, with different arms, places and dates.
- Match place, not just name. An entry for a Nuremberg family named Weber says nothing about a Weber family from Westphalia.
- Read the blazon carefully. Our guide on how to read a coat of arms and the heraldic colors guide will help with the terms.
Today families can still record arms. The HEROLD society in Berlin keeps the Deutsche Wappenrolle, a register of burgher and noble arms, old and newly created, entered after review and for a fee. As HEROLD itself notes, registration does not create a right to the arms, but it does document when and how a family has borne them. For how to judge any arms you are offered, see how to verify a coat of arms, and for other national traditions, heraldry by country.
How German surnames formed
According to the name scholar Konrad Kunze, German family names arose about 700 to 800 years ago, especially in fast-growing towns, where people with only one name needed extra labels to avoid confusion. He groups the results into five types:
- Father’s name (patronymics): Hans, son of Hartmann, becomes Hans Hartmann.
- Place of origin: Allgaier, “from the Allgäu”.
- Place of residence: a name for someone living by a wood, a brook or a hill.
- Occupation: Müller, Schmidt, Schneider.
- Nicknames: Sterk, “the strong”.
Occupational names dominate the top of the list. The Digital Dictionary of German Surnames (DFD), a long-term project of the University of Mainz and TU Darmstadt, ranks them like this:
| Rank | Surname | Original meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Müller | Miller, the operator of a mill |
| 2 | Schmidt | Smith; first a general word for craftsmen who worked hard materials |
| 3 | Schneider | Tailor; first anyone who cut material |
| 4 | Fischer | Fisherman |
| 5 | Weber | Weaver |
| 6 | Meyer | Steward or head farmer who ran a lord’s estate |
| 7 | Wagner | Wagon-maker |
| 8 | Becker | Baker |
| 9 | Schulz | Village or town headman (from Schultheiß) |
| 10 | Hoffmann | Farmer attached to a manor, or a servant at a prince’s court |
A job name tells you what an early bearer did, or was known for. It does not mean that every Müller descends from one miller: there were millers everywhere, so the name arose independently in many places. For a step-by-step approach, see how to trace your surname origin.
Regional differences you can still see
Spelling often hints at where a family came from:
- Schmid vs. Schmidt. The southern spelling Schmi(e)d reflects the long vowel of southern pronunciation, while the more northerly Schmidt and Schmitt keep the older short vowel.
- Maier and Mayer vs. Meyer and Meier. The ai/ay spellings preserve a late-medieval Austrian, Bavarian and Swabian writing convention; Meyer and Meier are mainly northern.
- Wagner vs. Wegener. Wagner began as a southern form and spread north, largely replacing the Low German Wegener and Wegner and the central German Weiner and Wehner.
- Schulz vs. Schulte. In the Low German north the same office gave Schult and Schulte, and the DFD notes that in Westphalia the word could also mean the owner of an important farm.
- Low German forms. Many northern names were later “High-Germanised”: the DFD notes that some Webers descend from the Low German form Wever.
To America through Bremen and Hamburg
German emigration to America has deep roots. In 1683 thirteen families from Krefeld, led by Francis Daniel Pastorius, founded Germantown near Philadelphia, the first sizable, stable German settlement in America. Later generations of emigrants often sailed from one of two North Sea ports.
Bremen
Passenger lists were compiled in Bremen from 1820. In 1875, short of space, the city destroyed all but the last three years of lists. The decision was reversed in 1907, when lists from 1904 onward were kept again, but most of what remained was lost in the Second World War. About 3,000 lists with roughly 740,000 names survive, mostly from 1920 to 1939, out of an estimated 7.5 million emigrants who left through Bremen and Bremerhaven. Volunteers have made them searchable in a free database.
Hamburg
Hamburg’s records survived far better. The Hamburg State Archive holds 555 volumes of passenger lists for emigrants who left the port between 1850 and 1934, recording each person’s name, place of origin and destination. They have been indexed into a searchable database, so a Hamburg entry can lead you straight back to a home village.
Names in the New World
Once in America, many German names were respelled or translated over time. A 2012 study by the linguist Marc Picard lists German examples such as Miller from Müller, Carpenter from Zimmermann, Taylor from Schneider, Butcher from Metzger, Fox from Fuchs, Brown from Braun and Black from Schwartz. So search under both forms. Our article on whether names were changed at Ellis Island looks at this question in more detail.
Start with your last name: a free first look →
Sources
- François Velde, “Right to Bear Arms”, Heraldica: https://www.heraldica.org/topics/right.htm
- François Velde, “An Annotated Bibliography of Heraldry” (Siebmacher entries), Heraldica: https://www.heraldica.org/biblio/annotate.htm
- A. C. Fox-Davies, A Complete Guide to Heraldry (1909), Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/completeguidetoh00foxduoft
- HEROLD, “Die Deutsche Wappenrolle (DWR)”: https://herold-verein.de/heraldik/die-deutsche-wappenrolle-dwr/
- Digitales Familiennamenwörterbuch Deutschlands (DFD), University of Mainz and TU Darmstadt: https://www.namenforschung.net/dfd/
- Konrad Kunze, “Familiennamen am Bodensee”, Badische Heimat 80: https://doi.org/10.57962/regionalia-21353
- Betty Randall, “Germantown, Pennsylvania”, IUPUI Max Kade German-American Center: https://library.indianapolis.iu.edu/static/collections/kade/germantown.html
- Die Maus (Bremen family history society), “All about the database Bremen Passenger Lists”: https://www.die-maus-bremen.info/fileadmin/pdf_docs/Forschung/PL_engl.pdf
- City of Hamburg, “Link to your Roots” (Hamburg passenger lists 1850–1934): https://www.hamburg.de/politik-und-verwaltung/behoerden/behoerde-fuer-kultur-und-medien/projekte-und-initiativen/link-to-your-roots-110216
- Marc Picard, “On the Translation of French-Canadian Family Names in English”, Names 60:3 (2012): https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/article/view/1954
Frequently asked questions
Did ordinary German families have coats of arms?
Many did. In German lands heraldry spread beyond the nobility to burghers in the 14th century, and a Castilian writer, Diego de Valera, noted in 1440 that burghers in France and Germany took arms as they pleased. These burgher arms (bürgerliche Wappen) belonged to particular families, not to everyone with the surname.
What is Siebmacher’s Wappenbuch?
It is the classic German armorial. Johann Siebmacher’s first Wappenbuch appeared in Nuremberg in 1605 with 3,320 illustrated arms, and the much larger New Siebmacher, begun in 1854, eventually ran to 101 volumes. A general index lists about 130,000 names across all editions.
What do the most common German surnames mean?
Most of the top ten are job names: Müller (miller), Schmidt (smith), Schneider (tailor), Fischer (fisherman), Weber (weaver), Meyer (a lord’s estate steward or head farmer), Wagner (wagon-maker), Becker (baker), Schulz (village headman) and Hoffmann (a farmer attached to a manor, or a servant at a prince’s court).
Where can I find my German ancestor’s emigration record?
Start with the ports. The Hamburg State Archive holds 555 volumes of emigrant lists from 1850 to 1934, recording name, place of origin and destination. Most Bremen lists were destroyed, but about 3,000 lists with some 740,000 names survive, mostly from 1920 to 1939, in a free online database.
Why did German names change in America?
Many were respelled or translated over time. A 2012 study in the journal Names lists German examples such as Miller from Müller, Carpenter from Zimmermann, Taylor from Schneider, Fox from Fuchs and Brown from Braun, so the same family may appear under both forms in American records.