Strukturen von Humanistennamen mit den Suffixen ‑us und ‑ius in Deutschland

Authors

  • Daniel Kroiß

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58938/ni627

Keywords:

Onomastics

Abstract

Many family names in Germany were Latinised under the influence
of Renaissance Humanism by adding the suffixes ‑us or ‑ius (so-called Humanist
names). These suffixes differ regarding their number of syllables and their
impact on the prosody of the family name. The suffix ‑ius, when added to a
family name consisting of at least two syllables, always leads to a shift of the
accent (Cremér-ius), whereas this is not necessarily the case with ‑us (Móllerus
/ Mollérus). It appears that structures consisting of a disyllabic German
family name and the suffix ‑ius are particularly frequent and that this suffix is
often preceded by a nasal or a liquid. Clearly this pattern could also be applied
if the underlying family name was monosyllabic. In this case a supplementary
syllable was added such as ‑en or ‑el (Franck – Franck-én-ius). The suffix ‑us
– apart from its use in patronymics (Arnold‑us) – was of little significance in
the forming of Humanist names, however.

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Published

2020-05-01

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Section

Articles

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