Digital Dictionary of Surnames in Germany

The Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature, in cooperation with the Technical University of Darmstadt, is compiling a Digital Dictionary of Surnames in Germany (“Das digitale Familiennamenwörterbuch Deutschlands” (DFD)). For the first time, the complete corpus of surnames currently found in Germany – including those of foreign origin – is being lexicographically recorded, mapped and etymologically analysed with the help of, among others, the cartographic findings. 

Previous surname lexica cover only a fraction of existing names (less than 10%), are often contradictory in their interpretations and are largely out of date. Thanks to the mapping programme developed for this project, the exact distribution of names in Germany is becoming visible for the first time, yielding numerous new insights into the etymology of names. To begin with, every surname with at least 10 telephone connections, including its variants, will be recorded.

The project serves both the interested public and scholarly needs by systematically organising the present body of surnames for the first time according to formal and thematic criteria (simple vs. complex names, grammatical peculiarities, linguistic origin, original naming motive, assignment to thematic groups such as clothing, hairstyle, etc.). It is the first worldwide research initiative to comprehensively catalogue a country's current corpus of surnames and to make it easily accessible to all users in digital form.