Project Description

At the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature in cooperation with the Technical University of Darmstadt, the work on a digital dictionary of surnames began in 2012, in which for the first time the complete basic stock of surnames (including foreign-language surnames) currently occurring in Germany will be lexicographically recorded, mapped, and etymologized with the aid of map findings, among other things. Previous lexicons of surnames cover only a fraction of the existing names (less than 10%), are often contradictory in their interpretation and mostly outdated. Due to the mapping program developed for the new project, the exact name distributions in Germany become visible for the first time. This will result in numerous new findings for name etymology. Initially, every surname with at least 10 telephone connections will be recorded, including its variants. The project serves both the interested public and scientific interests by systematizing the current stock of surnames for the first time according to formal as well as thematic criteria (simple vs. complex names, grammatical peculiarities, linguistic origin, original naming motif, assignment to thematic groups such as clothing, hairstyle, etc.). This is the first research project worldwide to comprehensively index the current surname inventory of a country and make it easily accessible digitally to all users.

Report 2013