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The preposition von ("of") was used to distinguish nobility; for example, if someone was baron of the village of Veltheim, his family name would be von Veltheim. In modern times, people who were elevated to nobility often had a 'von' added to their name. For example, Johann Wolfgang Goethe had his name changed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ...
In the Nordic countries, von is common but not universal in the surnames of noble families of German origin and has occasionally been used as a part of names of ennobled families of native or foreign (but non-German) extraction, as with the family of the philosopher Georg Henrik von Wright, which is of Scottish origin, or as with the family of ...
In Old Norse, Húnar is used both for Atli's subjects and as a general name for people from south of Scandinavia. [82] In Middle High German epic, the Huns are identified with the Hungarians. [194] In the Þiðrekssaga Húnaland is located in Northern Germany and roughly corresponds to the Duchy of Westphalia. [195] Hvítabǿr Old Norse: Hvítabǿr
The names of the most ancient nobility, the Uradel, but also names of some old untitled nobility, often do not contain either von or zu, such as Grote, Knigge or Vincke. [6] Conversely, the prefix von occurs in the names of 200 to 300 non-noble families, [ 7 ] much like van in the Netherlands.
In German personal names, von is a preposition which approximately means 'of' or 'from' and usually denotes some sort of nobility.While von (always lower case) is part of the family name or territorial designation, not a first or middle name, if the noble is referred to by their last name, use Schiller, Clausewitz or Goethe, not von Schiller, etc.
This category is for lists of (notable) people with a particular given name. See also: Category:Disambiguation pages with given-name-holder lists Pages in category "Lists of people by given name"
Rarer names tend to accumulate in the north and south. Huber is common in southern Bavaria and is, with the exception of Munich, the most frequent name in that area. Patronymic surnames such as Jansen/Janssen, Hansen, and Petersen are the most common names in the far north (Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein).
For ease of use, the [i] in front of the last name, and the ending _ve, were dropped. If the last name ends in [a], then removing the [j] would give the name of the patriarch or the place, as in, Grudaj - j = Gruda (place in MM). Otherwise, removing the whole ending [aj] yields the name of founder or place of origin, as in Lekaj - aj = Lek(ë).