How common are German surnames in your area?

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Im_a_hamburger@reddit

I have a last name based on German. Don’t want to give it up online, but my friends use it half the time instead of my first name because it’s fun to say.

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Confetticandi@reddit

Very common in my Missouri hometown.

Not common out here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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manicpixidreamgirl04@reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/Judaism/comments/ty1w1h/why_do_so_many_people_of_jewish_descent_have/

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Wooden_Cold_8084@reddit

Did any of your ancestors live in Germany?

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Wooden_Cold_8084@reddit

They were incredibly common (at least among the white population) when I was going to school during elementary (1995-2002)

Now? Forget it. All Spanish (Mexican). Our entire city, and I believe county, has pretty much mirrored what happened in school (white population has basically halved, while Hispanic has doubled)

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ChallengeRationality@reddit

I live in south Florida now, and it is not too common but you still see them.

I have a Geeman surname. My grandfather grew up in the Brewerytown neighborhood of Philadelphia during WWII, he used to tell me that at the time you heard german more frequently than english in the neighborhood. Then when the USA entered the war, it was like overnight everyone stopped speaking German in public. If he started to speak German his mom would correct him and say, “Danny, we’re Americans, we speak English”

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Apocalyptic0n3@reddit

I don't see it too often here in Arizona but saw it all the time in Michigan. My own surname is German, albeit modified slightly to drop 2 letters when my family came to the US in the 1800s.

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velociraptorfarmer@reddit

Most of the ones in Arizona (myself included, along with yourself) that I've seen are transplants.

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Apocalyptic0n3@reddit

To be fair, I think I know more transplants than I do native Arizonans. No one in Arizona seems to be from Arizona.

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Throwaway46034792@reddit

I was born and raised in arizona along with my mom and my grandma got here when she was only 10

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In_Formaldehyde_@reddit

Most of the West Coast is recently settled, especially states like Arizona and Nevada.

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Marley455@reddit

My cousin was born and raised. As soon as she graduated college, she moved to a completely different state.

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PureMitten@reddit

I'm from Michigan and have an extremely common German surname. Never blinked at meeting others with my last name, there are also stores, brand names, and various other companies using my name. Moved to Florida and had another guy in my 100+ person organization with my surname and people kept asking if we were related because it was such a strange last name.

When I tried to explain my name was common enough to be used for [international brand] I just got blank stares and slow head shakes. This brand that was the generic product name for me growing up was apparently too foreign a word to have clicked as the brand name down there, even for people who I knew owned something from that brand.

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RachelRTR@reddit

Meijer?

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BrainFartTheFirst@reddit

Ironically my German family held their reunion in Fountain Hills a few years ago.

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ExtremePotatoFanatic@reddit

Yep! Very common here in Michigan

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stonernerd710@reddit

Same. In Arizona, abd my great grandfather also changed one letter of our last name to make it sound less German. An r became a y. I only found out last year.

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TheOldBooks@reddit

This tracks

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HoldMyWong@reddit

Basically anyone with European ancestry has an impossible to pronounce German last name here

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AdStatus2486@reddit

Pretty common In Kansas. I have a German Surname.

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AdLeather1036@reddit

Incredibly common, because I live in a predominantly Dutch village which I moved to from a German suburban-level city. If it doesn't have "dink" or "hagen" or "tink" or "huis" at the end, you're doing something wrong.

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Specific_Bother_9387@reddit

Grew up with a guy in a small town in Arkansas with the last name Majzner. His grandfather was from Germany, moved here after WW2, and was a Holocaust denier.

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SavannahInChicago@reddit

My last name is found in both Dutch and German. I have both heritage and where I am from in Michigan so do a lot of other people.

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VitruvianDude@reddit

On the West Coast, I would say they are relatively common, but not like other parts of the US. The first waves of pioneer settlers were Yankee stock, followed by Scandinavians in the north and Chinese in the south, and later Mexicans throughout. Great Migration African-Americans came from Texas and Louisiana. I get the sense that the Germans came from the Midwest during the Dust Bowl dislocations.

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Fly_Boy_1999@reddit

Many German surnames where I grew up as well as Polish and Irish

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only-a-marik@reddit

Extremely common in and around Pennsylvania. In New York, Yiddish (which is closely related to German) surnames are extremely common due to the number of Ashkenazi Jews.

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PermissionUpstairs12@reddit

Oh no. I hope you're not one of the people I was just talking about.

I'm a Schwartz (family has lived in SE Pennsylvania since the 1600's) and people constantly insist I'm either ethnically or religiously Jewish and "just don't know it".

I'm not. My family is Mennonite. Both sides are German. No one is Jewish. My DNA shows zero Ashkenazi blood.

Yet people INSIST "Schwartz" is a Jewish name.

It's not. It's a German name & the German word for "Black" (sans the "t").

But they insist anyway.

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Ladonnacinica@reddit

The USA really believes that certain German names are Jewish. But they’re just German.

I even mentioned this to my colleague who is Ashkenazi Jewish and she was surprised too. She had grown up believing names like Schwartz or Schwarz had Jewish connections.

It’s one of those myths that are very pervasive.

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only-a-marik@reddit

Well, no, I mean names like Greenbaum (instead of Grünebaum) or Goldschlager (instead of Geldschlager).

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dangleicious13@reddit

My mom's surname is German. Her dad's family came from Germany in the mid-late 1800s.

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RachelRTR@reddit

Same in Alabama on my Dad's side. There is even a German sausage festival nearby where I grew up.

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BurgerFaces@reddit

German surnames are pretty common. I also know a guy named Adolf.

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InterestingWork912@reddit

That’s a rough name to have - why would his parents name him that???

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RachelRTR@reddit

I had a uncle Adolf. He was born before WWII.

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BurgerFaces@reddit

He's like 90

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InterestingWork912@reddit

Makes much more sense. I was thinking of this kinda situation: https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/parents-cannot-regain-custody-children-nazi-inspired/story?id=11334970

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BurgerFaces@reddit

That sounds incredibly awful

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CannonWheels@reddit

I mean, one of my state’s largest attractions is a german themed town… German influence is very common.

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BluudLust@reddit

Extremely common in my house.

I'm all seriousness, where I live, it's rare. Almost everyone has an English or French last name.

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MM_in_MN@reddit

Common- I live in MN. There were a lot of German farmers that settled here. Oktoberfests have been celebrated here for 50 years.

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Sweet_Aggressive@reddit

In southeastern New Mexico it’s not all that uncommon. We had the German Forces stationed here for quite a long time, though.

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hopping_hessian@reddit

Midwest - very common here.

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paw_inspector@reddit

Fun fact Bismarck, is the only state capital named after a foreign leader. And was done so to attract Germans and their railroad money. Which it did.

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LardMallard@reddit

Check out the Stearns County History Museum in MN. They can help you by telling you how the Germans there had their own German newspapers, textbooks in German etc. It was WW l that ended those practices. There are thousands of german last names in that county .

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Torchic336@reddit

Very common in Iowa, German, Dutch, and Scottish/Irish seem to be the ones I run into the most.

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yellowbubble7@reddit

I hardly ever see them where I am in NH, but they were super common in the parts of MD that I lived and worked in.

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InterestingWork912@reddit

For a while I thought some surnames that are actually German were Jewish bc the ppl I knew with those names were Jewish. Wasn’t until my friend married a German guy that I realized the name origin wasn’t as straightforward.

There aren’t that many people of German origin that speak German and Are closely tied to Germany - think you gotta go back a few generations. Me for example - my ancestry is Irish, German, Slavic of some kind (Ukrainian I think?), and Mexican. My last name is super Slavic sounding but nobody in my family speaks any Slavic languages.

My great-great or great great great grandfather immigrated from Eastern Europe. My grandfathers mom came from Germany. My grandmas grandparents came from Ireland. My mom came from Mexico. I’m Just a lil melting pot

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kermitdafrog21@reddit

Are you from the northeast? Just curious because I have the same experience (some of the names people are listing I always thought of as Jewish last names)

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InterestingWork912@reddit

I’m from the south but I live in the PNW. Same experience in both places

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PermissionUpstairs12@reddit

Yep, I'm a Schwartz and people try to INSIST that I'm either ethnically or religiously Jewidh and "just don't know it". Like ALL THE TIME.

Jewish people just assume, too. I can't tell you frequently I get "Mazel Tov'd" and I'm never sure what to do.

I know for a FACT I have zero Jewish blood via DNA testing and the fact that I come from parents who are German on both sides...and Mennonite.

But if I insist "I'm not Jewish!" then I sound like an antisemite, but if I just say "Mazel Tov" back, I feel like I'm appropriating.

I feel like "Schwartz" is universally viewed as a Jewish last name, despite the fact that it's not.

People REALLY tell me that my DNA testing and whole family history must be wrong because they don't understand it's the German word for "Black" by dropping the "T".

It's actually really frustrating explaining this to people and having them still insist it's a "Jewish name".

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InterestingWork912@reddit

There must have been a lot of German immigrants to the US who were Jewish. I had assumed a German friend was Jewish based on his name, which turns out is very German. He was very confused by the connection so I don’t think it’s a thing in Germany

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motherlymetal@reddit

Pretty common.

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Techialo@reddit

Very, majority of white people in my state came from German, English, and Irish backgrounds.

Not unusual to run into a Mueller or a Speer.

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JustBeforeSunrise@reddit

I'm from Texas, both of my parents have German surnames. One of my grandparents tried to take one of the n's off of the end, parent added it back on. They're very common in central Texas.

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no_es_sabado428@reddit

Not really common where I live. Most surnames here are of British or Spanish origin with a sprinkling of others. When someone has a German (or honestly really non British or Spanish surname) it usually makes me think them or whoever gave them that surname was from a different part of the country originally, and I'm almost always right about that.

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AndrewtheRey@reddit

I’m in Indiana, where we do have a lot of German surnames, but Italian, Polish, or Irish Catholic surnames are less common. When I worked in a liquor store, I would see lots of different last names on ID’s, and once I asked this guy with a Polish surname where he’s originally from, and he said “oh, Cleveland. How did you know I’m not from here?” And I said “the Ski name.” And he said “oh. Yeah. There’s definitely not a Polish-American community here.”

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AndrewtheRey@reddit

In Indiana, it’s somewhat common. Germans settled in many areas of the state, but so did a lot of Anglo southerners, African Americans, and Appalachians, so it depends on where you are.

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yellowdaisycoffee@reddit

I live in Pennsylvania, so it's extremely common. Many names have either been anglicized to some extent, or have simply evolved a little bit, but that seems to be common regardless of ethnic origin.

I have a large German background myself, and most of my German relatives are from North Carolina. I can't speak to the prevalence of German names there, but I know one of our family names is still distinctly German (though not in its original form), and another no longer immediately reads as German (although I believe that is more because the name was a bit of a mouthful). There's a mix of that when you break down my family tree.

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Powerful_Put5667@reddit

Wisconsin. Many German surnames. Different groups settled in areas that already had communities from their home country.

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Oomlotte99@reddit

I have a very generic English last name that is apparently super common. I have never met anyone outside of my family with my common last name and I swear because of living in Wisconsin. Ha ha.

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shelwood46@reddit

I grew up in Wisconsin and moved to NJ as a young adult. It was a huge culture shock when everyone out East assumed that any German-sounding surname meant someone must be Jewish, which is not an assumption you'd ever make about German-sounding surnames in Wisconsin, where they are ubiquitous.

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VIDCAs17@reddit

Only a few years ago did I learn what stereotypical “Jewish” surnames were like. All I could think is that these were pretty common names for my area and belong to several people I knew.

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yugohotty@reddit

My assumption is because there are a lot of Jewish people in New Jersey; especially in the central NJ area (Middlesex, Monmouth county)

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shelwood46@reddit

There's overlap. I grew up with lots of people named Koch (pronounced Cook) who were definitely not Jewish, but in NJ, that was "Kahtch" and for sure a Jewish surname (I lived in Somerset/Mercer).

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Oomlotte99@reddit

Extremely.

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Substantial_Set_6464@reddit

Extremely common in the area of MN where I'm from.

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Swimming-Book-1296@reddit

Extremely common, although more common just a little south. The area around New Braunfels is really German.

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DrBlowtorch@reddit

In the Midwest they’re super common. As in well over half of all the white people I know have German surnames.

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PlusAd423@reddit

I don't know. Do the people I meet named Black, Miller, Smith, Fisher, Weaver, Baker, Shepherd, Cook, Carpenter, Brown, Long, King, Fox, White, Young, Red, Shoemaker, Hunter, Angel, or Piper have German, English or some other name?

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GooseNYC@reddit

It's not uncommon.

A lot of Jewish families around me have German-sounding last name (I took German so I have a little bit of an ear for it). Counting them, it's relatively common.

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Allemaengel@reddit

I'm from PA and PA German as my username suggests.

The majority of surnames here are German as are place names, i.e. Hamburg, Weisenberg, Heidelberg, Hassadahl, Hexenkopf, Womelsdorf, Weidasville, Schnecksville, Schwenksville, Wassergas, Seizholtzville, Steinsburg, Kempton, etc.

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inevergreene@reddit

Uncommon. I live in the Deep South. Most are of British and Scots/Irish descent.

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SGDFish@reddit

In Texas? Very common, although it's definitely more noticeable in particular areas or cities (Like Gruene, Fredericksburg, New Braunfels, West, Pflugerville, you get the idea)

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CPolland12@reddit

Not to Mention Texas German being its own language. Which is an amalgamation of all of the German dialects from the early settlers.

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dresdenthezomwhacker@reddit

It’s actually a little more than that. There was never any over arching common Texan dialect so much as every town had its OWN dialect, and many were a really crystalized old form of German. It’s often been remarked from Germans who had the pleasure of talking to Texas Germans that their speech was very old fashioned. Unfortunately Texas German is purdy much extinct now, but it’s cool that it exists in much of our living memory.

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AfterSomewhere@reddit

German names are very common here in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Most came down the "great wagon road" from Pennsylvania in the mid 18th century.

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AziMeeshka@reddit

Where I grew up? Extremely common. I didn't even know most of them were German names until I got older. I would say it was at least 65-70% German surnames, a small handful of Scandinavian, and most of the rest being mostly British in origin.

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sweet_hedgehog_23@reddit

I also wonder if the World War anglicization of German surnames is overstated at times. I know in my family they stopped speaking German during WWI, but no one in the family and related families anglicized like changing Schmidt to Smith. There are definitely names that dropped an umlatt and some changed the spelling slightly, but the names stayed German. I think some of it was just standardizing spelling. Even in 18th and 19th century German church records the names aren't always spelled the same every time. The German name in my family tree that anglicized the most was from a colonial era immigrant and I definitely think that was a lot of sounding it out spelling that gradually changed the name from Euler to Oilar.

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VIDCAs17@reddit

This is a theory I made up just now with no evidence, but maybe anglicization was more prevalent in parts of the country where German surnames were more uncommon and more exotic sounding? And there was less of a German immigrant cultural undercurrent to the area?

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sweet_hedgehog_23@reddit

I could definitely see that being the case. My ancestors were in the Midwest and in strong German communities, so there was probably less pressure to anglicize. I have two great grandmothers who were 100% German both living in the same city and the difference in exposure to German language was drastically different because of their birth years. One was 3 when WWI started and the other was 17.

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simpingforMinYoongi@reddit

I live in Pennsylvania, so German surnames are very common.

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SanchosaurusRex@reddit

Yeah, they’re around. It’s not like there’s a German-American enclave in the LA area, but German surnames are relatively common among white Americans here.

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ak47blackjack@reddit

This is a survey

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Mission-Coyote4457@reddit

not where I live now, but when I lived in the midwest it was a constant, I was like the only person who didn't have a German name sometimes

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Daffodil_Peony_Rose@reddit

I have a German surname. So did my maternal grandmother. There’s a lot of German and French influence in my city :)

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LobsterPowerful8900@reddit

Dude, we don’t even know any more. Everyone has some weird sounding last names and it’s just what it is. No one really thinks about the origins of it or how much of that you might be. Even if you had a German name, you could be either 100% German or 2% German. Or 0% if you just happened to marry into the name. We just maybe try to pronounce it once, and then call you by your first name or a nickname forever. You live here, you’re an American and a name is just a name.

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papercranium@reddit

Not uncommon here in Vermont where I live now, but SUPER common in Ohio, where I grew up.

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Traditional_Trust_93@reddit

Idk if Bauer is German but there's a lot of Bauer's.

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HufflepuffFan@reddit

Bauer is the german word for farmer (and a common surname in germany)

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cyvaquero@reddit

I'm from rural central PA, tons. Like you really have to dig into my family tree to find non-Germans, my roots go back to late 1600s in PA.

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Comicalacimoc@reddit

Common in LI, NY

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Comicalacimoc@reddit

Oddly enough my mother’s maiden name is Austrian and my dad’s grandmother’s name is German but they were gone once they got married obviously.

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AnimatronicHeffalump@reddit

47% of my high school class had German surnames, and I would get good money that almost 100% of us had German ancestry of some kind. Grew up in Kansas in what I call “Mennonite central” so the population is heavily German.

That being said, my last name is certainly anglicized, in that it’s not spelled like it was in Germany. According to an angry German lady working at a mall I went to, we don’t pronounce it correctly either

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moose563@reddit

A lot of families ‘Americanized’ their German names during WWI and WWII. So I think there are lots of German surnames out there just below the surface.

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sto_brohammed@reddit

The vast majority of people in my hometown have German last names. The spellings are a bit different from the original German but they're still clearly of German origin. My great grandparents on both sides of the family still spoke German at home but not with their kids. Both sides had been in the States for several generations at that point but only dropped German due to the first war on the one side and the second war on the other. My grandparents understood German fairly well but struggled to speak it. My generation retained a couple of words here and there, mostly swear words and the following generations, my niece's generation and their kids, don't know any German at all.

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Mr_Sarcasum@reddit

I wonder how many ways you can spell "Wagner" in German

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Smoopiebear@reddit

Not many in Southern California.

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Taanistat@reddit

I live in Pennsylvania. It's extremely common.

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AtheneSchmidt@reddit

Pretty common. ⬆️

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Echterspieler@reddit

Very common here in NY. I have one. Lots of Germans and Dutch settled here.

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Whhyme00@reddit

New Englander here, and I work in HR so I get to see many, many names. German? Very little. Most common I see are Italian, and then a wide variety of African surnames. My line of work has a lot to do with it, too, so I don't have a broader scope to pull from.

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MortimerDongle@reddit

Super common, possibly an outright majority

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PermissionUpstairs12@reddit

Exactly.

I didn't know Aldi was "a German Grocer" in other states and countries because they sell exactly the same items places like Giant and Weis do.

I thought we got a broken Aldi when I heard this, then I found out most people can't get spätze, various sauerkrauts, bratwurst, schnitzel, pretzels, etc.

I thought every grocery store has standard "German" foods because you can get all of that at Walmart here.

So technically our Aldi is just as "German" as the others, I just didn't realize people were struggling to find basic German staples at normal stores.

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TruckADuck42@reddit

Same here in the Midwest. I'm not 100% sure I could get spätzle at a regular grocery store (tbh I didn't know what it was until just now) but everything else for sure. Most people wouldn't even consciously recognize a bratwurst as German.

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AshTheGoddamnRobot@reddit

Very. Its the Midwest. Tons of German and Scandinavian surnames. My own governor has a German surname

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PermissionUpstairs12@reddit

Did you see the Trump side of Governor Tim Walz's family all got t-shirts made with their own last name spelled wrong? 😂

They were going for "The Walzes" and thought the plural of their own name was "The Walz's", plastered it all over t-shirts, and took a photo 📸 showing everyone how dumb they are.

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alicein420land_@reddit

They're also distant cousins and Tim Walz's sister said she didn't recognize a single person in the photo.

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AshTheGoddamnRobot@reddit

The average intelligence of a Trumper 😂

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_Smedette_@reddit

Very common. Some have been anglicised (we didn’t keep umlauts and ß isn’t part of our alphabet), but they’re everywhere.

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EventideLight@reddit

Pennsylvanian here, there are a lot of German Surnames here. Pennsylvania has a lot of German heritage and you will find lots of German style things around the State. It is home of the oldest brewery in the US, Yuengling. There are towns built around old German traditional design. There are also the Pennsylvania Dutch which weren't Dutch, the customs people at the time didn't understand the difference between Dutch and Deutsch.

I also know more than a couple people who can speak German. We had a lot of people in my area fight in WW2, but I don't think there was any stigma around being German, but I wasn't there.

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link2edition@reddit

My town is where Von Braun and his team developed the moon rocket. Loads of german names here.

Hell I once worked with a guy named Hans who was the grandson of one of those guys.

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SensitiveBugGirl@reddit

Common. I live in the Midwest. I was raised Lutheran, attended a Lutheran elementary school, highschool, and college. And now I work in a Lutheran school. Many of my teachers, coworkers, church members, students, and family have German surnames. If you Google a list of German surnames, many are familiar to me.

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PermissionUpstairs12@reddit

Germantown, Pennsylvania?

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SensitiveBugGirl@reddit

Nope!

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nautical1776@reddit

Extremely

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Actuallynailpolish@reddit

My married surname is German. My life long friends maiden name is German. So 2/2 of me and my bestie

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timothythefirst@reddit

I have a German surname but we don’t pronounce it the German way

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broadsharp@reddit

Pretty common

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lilzingerlovestorun@reddit

Very common

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KR1735@reddit

Profoundly common

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Fast_Allen@reddit

My own is Germanic, and I’m spring with a couple both with German surnames, as well as a Danish named dude.

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protossaccount@reddit

A lot. When people came to the states they changed their names a bit or shortened them. So a lot of the last names you will see in America are modifications.

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Waste-Account7048@reddit

Living in Wisconsin, they're quite common.

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Darmok-on-the-Ocean@reddit

My mother has a German maiden name. It was slightly anglicized though. (Müller to Miller.)

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MihalysRevenge@reddit

In New Mexico super rare most surnames or Spanish, Indigenous or Anglo

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FWEngineer@reddit

My home town is based on a Swiss name, the town I work in has a German name, the street in front of the business has a German name, in fact about half of the major roads around here have German names.

In my family, none of the last names were anglicized (I'm 3/4 German).

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holiestcannoly@reddit

I’m from Pittsburgh, so it’s basically everywhere.

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Agile_Property9943@reddit

Really common

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KiraiEclipse@reddit

Yeah, I know a lot of people with German surnames, including parts of both my husband and my families.

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FemboyEngineer@reddit

It's not common in most of the South. The South just didn't experience a ton of international migration until recently; white folks are still mostly English Scots & Irish.

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PermissionUpstairs12@reddit

As a "Schwartz" the spellings you listed are the only that aren't an assault on my eyes.

The ones that dropped the "c" (Sheetz) are just...wrong. They look wrong because they're spelled wrong and it makes me CRAZY.

But obviously I can't scream "Why did you ruin your last name like that?!" without being rude, so I just silently judge them, instead.

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FemboyEngineer@reddit

Today I learned Sheetz is a surname, not an ad-hoc brand name. That hurts.

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WildlifePolicyChick@reddit

Very common in my home state of Texas. Lots of German communities and towns there. New Braunfels, Boerne, and Gruene, for example.

My last name is Irish, but how that happened I don't know - all my relatives on both sides are German.

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OptatusCleary@reddit

Pretty common. They are definitely part of the mix of “generic white person names.”

I have a German surname in real life, but it isn’t necessarily recognizably German to people who don’t know a lot of German names. I think people don’t really think much about it or make many ethnic assumptions.

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michelle427@reddit

I’m also Lutheran so at my church in California a fair amount of last names are German.

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michelle427@reddit

Well Spanish surnames are more popular where I live. But you hear a German name here and there. Mine’s German.

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BrackenFernAnja@reddit

All the time. My maiden name is from England but also exists in Germany. My great-grandmother changed her German surname slightly to make it sound less German. I’ve had countless friends with German surnames: Schwarzbach, Bergmann, Weiss, Becker, Katzenellenbogen, Klein, Dorfman, etc.

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CODENAMEDERPY@reddit

Not rare but not common.

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littleyellowbike@reddit

Still very common here in the Midwest (my own maiden name is German). Lots of variations of Schwartz, Schwarzkopf, Wagner, Schneider, Schmidt, Kaufman, Klein, etc. Many have anglicized spellings, but they're still recognizably German.

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PermissionUpstairs12@reddit

Schwartz in SE Pennsylvania here!

My family is German on both sides, so I was getting a super-German name regardless.

The "S" surnames were always the biggest group in school, largely because there's so many German Surnames that start with "S".

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Ana_Na_Moose@reddit

German surnames are by far the dominant names where I was raised in south central PA.

Where I am now in Baltimore German names are not uncommon, but English and Scottish origin names are far more prevalent

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calicoskiies@reddit

I’d say fairly common. I used to work at an assisted living facility in the suburbs and a lot of my patients and residents in other units had German last names and spoke German. I believe a lot of Germans immigrated to the area in the 1700s.

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PermissionUpstairs12@reddit

The 1600s if you're talking Southeast Pennsylvania. My mother woukd never let me forget that we've lived here since nearly a century before William Penn showed up and named it "Pennsylvania". 💯🤭

(It wasn't close to "nearly a Century", more like 50 or 60 years, at best. And it wasn't just Germans, it was Swedes, Finns, & Dutch all around 1638, but that woukd make my mom's story less interesting.)

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LaneyRW@reddit

Very common here, I live in Pennsylvania Dutch/German country haha…..

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not_bad_really@reddit

Very common where I'm from in rural Minnesota. Both of my grandmothers were of German decent. So while my surname is Irish I have more German ancestry.

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JohnMarstonSucks@reddit

I really thought that was asking how common German submarines were in my area.

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pixel-beast@reddit

Dutch is much more common in NY, but German last names are still very common

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rubymiggins@reddit

I grew up in suburban Chicago, and went to a Lutheran school from K-8th grade in the 1970s. Every single teacher and most students had German surnames. And then I went to college in Wisconsin, and there are Germans everywhere.

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LoudCrickets72@reddit

Very common. The predominate European ancestry group among midwesterners is German. You'll find people here with German last names that are difficult for many to pronounce. However, many names are Anglicized both in spelling and pronunciation.

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PermissionUpstairs12@reddit

Very. Most Surnames in my area/region are German (closely followed by Irish & Italian). My father speaks German and my Mom's entire family speak Pennsylvania Dutch (Pennsylvania German) fluently.

I'm not sure how much actual German Speakers have died down, but it might be because there's so many PA Dutch speakers (Amish, Mennonite, and most German-Protestants), instead.

As far as I know, PA Dutch isn't counted as "German" in the US, so if those numbers were combined, the number of German speakers would be much higher.

But I live in Southeastern Pennsylvania (Philly Suburbs) so pretty much all of Pennsylvania and the states north of it will have tons of German Surnames (same as West Coast), while the South and Southwest would have fewer German surnames.

But yeah, in my area that's ALL you see/hear bc this where the earliest German immigrants settled and remained in the early 1600's. (IE: Southeast PA, Ohio River Valley, and parts of Indiana).

My Mom's family has been in modern Southeast Pennsylvania since nearly a century before William Penn showed up and named it.

All of our family names are 4 letters ending in "Z" except for my father's last name (my name) which is...Schwartz.

So still pretty German. Though the letter "t" is added to a lot of German Surnames and even more often the "Sch" is reduced to "Sh" like "Scheetz" vs "Sheetz".

The latter looks wrong AF whenever I see it.

Despite how common my last name is here, I've had to spell it 100% of the times a person has to write or type it.

I don't understand how people are always SO wildly off.

Me: "Last name Schwartz"

Pharmacist: "Sh?...Sw...?"

Like WTF? 😂

It's not even hard to spell! It's spelled EXACTLY how it's pronounced, but I just start spelling automatically now when anyone asks my last name.

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MesopotamiaSong@reddit

extremely common. like you said they are often anglicized, but you still see a lot of authentic spellings near me

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Evil_Weevill@reddit

Not super common. Still see them occasionally, but not a lot.

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eodchop@reddit

I'd guess 1/3rd or so in our area. Growing up, there were tons of them in rural Missouri. Schroeder, Schmidt, Meier, Meyer etc etc.

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dontpissmeoffplsnthx@reddit

Same, but maybe a tad higher in my area considering there's a town that was originally settled by Germans in the region

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Somewisconsinite@reddit

Extremely.

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hibbitydibbitytwo@reddit

Missouri -- middle of the middle of the country, basically 75% German last names (surnames)

My last name is German

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STLFleur@reddit

I live in the St. Louis, Missouri area and German surnames are super common. Missouri has been described as the "American Rhineland", and St. Louis in particular saw a large influx of German immigration in the 1800s.

My part of St. Louis has a lot of Lutheran and Catholic churches.

Peculiarly, an elderly gentleman recently told me the story of two of the Catholic churches in my immediate area- apparently one catered to the German Catholics and the other catered to the French Catholics. When he was growing up, even though the kids were 2nd or 3rd generation Americans, walking home from either of the Catholic schools in his day was stressful as the German Catholic School Kids would try to fight the French Catholic School kids and vice versa (the schools and churches were only about half a mile away from each other).

But yes. Lots and lots of German here!

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jennyrules@reddit

Extremely common. I live in Pennsylvania after all.

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Futurepharma91@reddit

Same. That Pennsylvania Dutch.

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Futurepharma91@reddit

I live in Pennsylvania. Very common. Especially rural and central Pennsylvania. My grandfather grew up in amish country and went to a one room schoolhouse there. If you go back far enough, it seems I have some common ancestors with the modern amish. Pennsylvania dutch people, food and culture is quite prevalent in my area, and carries a lot of old world German names.

As a standard issue WASP mutt, I try to hold on to some PA dutch traditions because it is a really neat culture.

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Empire7173@reddit

Where I live in Zelienople PA, it's very common. Our founder was Detmar Basse and the next town was settled by Johann Rapp when he created Harmony.

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KimberlyElaineS@reddit

SoCal here, myself and my family are the only ones I’ve come across and I’ve lived here 20+ years.

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Mmmmmmm_Bacon@reddit

I don’t think I know which surnames are German. How am I supposed to know if it’s German, Dutch, Norwegian, Lithuanian, etc? They’re all kind of the same to us, to be honest. Like Braun. How am I supposed to know the European origins of Braun. Is Braun German?

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jefferson497@reddit

Depends where you are. Many Jewish surnames are of German origin

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Zaidswith@reddit

But that's only the norm in New England. I didn't encounter that stereotype until I was an adult.

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sneachta@reddit

Fairly common in Louisiana. As a matter of fact, my own surname is of German origin.

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oswin13@reddit

Very, to the point where everyone tried to pronounce my maiden name like a German name and it was actually Irish.

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farson135@reddit

I live in the Hill Country, near-ish to Fredericksburg, which is also the home of a variant of German known as Texasdeutsch.

This is also the one place I've ever been to where most people pronounce my name correctly.

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BerryCritical@reddit

Very common. My grandparents’ name and my married name are German. The town where I grew up up in the Midwest had mostly German names. Some names had a “ue” pronounced as an “e”, which is quite German even for our area.

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BitNorthOfForty@reddit

PA —> MD Super common.

I’m not sure that there were as many 20th-century U.S. name changes as you were describing simply for the sake of distancing one’s family from Germany. Spelling changes to increase ease of American pronunciation might have been the most common changes.

For example, WWII Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower had a clearly German surname. However, the spelling was a variant from the German “Eisenhauer,” and likely had been Anglicized at some point to turn the name into a 2-for-1 name + built-in American pronunciation key.

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mkshane@reddit

I have one. And where I grew up in south central Pennsylvania, SUPER common… like everywhere

Less common in my newer adopted home of north Florida but still existent

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mklinger23@reddit

My surname is German lol. As you go further west, you get more. The east coast is a lot of Irish and Italian. Inland is where you get German. Then Midwest it's a lot of Scandinavian.

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zenmadre@reddit

I don't live there any longer, but I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and it's a very German town... So there were a lot.

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tcrhs@reddit

My German last name was Americanized when the family came to America. They wanted to assimilate, so they dropped the -schlager from the name.

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tomcat_tweaker@reddit

Pretty common. 25% of Ohioans have German ancestry. My surname isn't, but both of my grandmothers had German maiden surnames.

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Brief-First@reddit

I live in Ohio and grew up in Cincinnati, so it is extremely common. My mom is actually PA dutch, so she grew up in a very German area (PA/OH border).

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MetroBS@reddit

Very very common, my own surname is German

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Bluemonogi@reddit

Common in the middle of the US.

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_pamelab@reddit

I come across a German surname every time I write my name. It used to be incredibly common around here, but people got more mobile and the air force base brought in tons of other people so the last names scattered.

I have some funeral guest books from the 50s and they read like the Munich phone book. Everyone on our end of town was German back then.

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stantoncree76@reddit

Very very common.

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115machine@reddit

Appalachia is mostly Scottish/Irish in heritage but there are pockets of Germans. Maybe 20% of people around me have German surnames

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thestereo300@reddit

In Minnesota? It feels like most people of European ancestry have a German surname. Most people I know have German ancestry of some kind here.

My German heritage story if interested:

Mine great grandparents hopped over here in 1884 after losing their large farm/property outside of Dusseldorf they lived on for over 1000 years to "the bankers." I think there were a few drought years in a row and it bankrupted them. Apparently their mom was elderly and even through they lost the property they worked the property and paid rent until their mom passed away and once that happened they figured there was no opportunity in Germany and Kaiser was drafting people for another pointless war so they got the hell out. I believe my great grandfather was actually drafted and he wanted no part of it (it was a death sentence) so he escaped to Hamburg and jumped on this ship. We found him on the ship's log on ancestry.com.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Suevia_(1874)

My grandparents were born here but spoke German but WWI cured them of that. My mom heard German in the house but didn't speak it. I am the first generation without any German spoken in my household.

The last vestige of German culture we have is that there is a smoked sausage recipe/process that has been passed down and the last person that knows it is my cousin and he is in his mid 60s and I'm not sure the next generation is going to do it because it takes a couple of days to make it.

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Recent-Irish@reddit

Extremely. Nebraska was heavily settled by Germans and Czech.

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hooliganvet@reddit

My grandmother grew up in Scotts Bluff, family name Stricker and had to speak German in the house because my GGM never learned much English so it was disrespectful to speak English in front of her. She married my Grand father with a Scottish surname, so I have a Scottish last name.

My other grandmother, family name Ludwig, grew up in San Antonio.

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Yaakovsidney@reddit

Very in the Midwest

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webbess1@reddit

Here in Southern NY, German last names usually indicate Jewish heritage. There aren’t many Lutherans around here.

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AllSoulsNight@reddit

Foothills of NC. Lots of German surnames from the 1700s. Many are anglicized now.

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doveinabottle@reddit

I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Incredibly common. My mother’s maiden name is Schneider.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

In my household it is 100%

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any_name_today@reddit

My maiden name was German. My married name is also German. That's about as much as I can vouch for. Ironically, neither mine nor my husband's families have a lot of German ancestry, it's just that the male line that's German that has managed to continue

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DEdwardPossum@reddit

Very common. I'm in the Ohio Valley and there was a lot of German speakers settling in that general area in the mid 1800s, including some of my ancestors. Large amount of German catholic farmers settled south of me.

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VampireGremlin@reddit

I mostly only see British surnames.

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Caranath128@reddit

My family. We dropped the ‘itz’. Another branch of the family had been ‘Schmidt’ and they too dropped it, so now two of the three brothers who emigrated, their families have 2 with the shortened last name and the third changed the Schmidt to smith.

It’s all very confusing, because some of the branches have us in census as Polish( depending on year and where the borders were drawn at the time).

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anneofgraygardens@reddit

not extremely common here. I wouldn't be shocked to meet someone with a German last name, but there not ubiquitous.

I have a small amount of German ancestry myself but it's not reflected in my name. My maternal grandparents were from the Midwest and my first American born ancestors were German immigrants to Ohio and Nebraska, back in the early-mid 19th century. My German born g-g-grandfather fought for the Union in the civil war.

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tonsofun08@reddit

Fairly common

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alexopaedia@reddit

So common. I work in healthcare, see hundreds of names a day. It's probably 45% German, 30% Polish, 10% various Hispanic names, and the rest a mishmash. This is in Milwaukee, WI, an area super known for its German heritage.

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CFBCoachGuy@reddit

German names are pretty rare in the southeast. I had some German ancestors in western North Carolina several generations ago, apparently they (or presumably a census worker) changed their surname from a German one to a Cherokee one. No clue as to why

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PghSubie@reddit

They're super common in my house

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Sipping_tea@reddit

Not as common as English last names in Utah. I am really racking my brain to think of some, but I don’t think we have as many German descendants as we English so that may be why.

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Judgy-Introvert@reddit

My great grandfather and his family on my dad’s side moved here from Germany. He dropped a letter in their last name. I was told it was in order to sound less German. My mom moved here from Germany when she was 16. Her mom (my grandmother) married an American soldier (my mother’s step dad) so no need to change anything there.

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missjackieo@reddit

Pretty common. I have a German surname that is pretty uncommon though.

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GarlicAftershave@reddit

In both Wisconsin and now in western Illinois, German surnames are very common. Heck, there are a bunch of small towns in this area that are named after places in Germany. Same story up in Wisconsin.

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FishingWorth3068@reddit

My last name is German. It’s pretty common in Pennsylvania. Pretty sure there’s a street named after us in hermatige. Midwest is full of German heritage

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Whatever-ItsFine@reddit

Very, very common in eastern Missouri. St. Louis has historically had Irish, Italian, and German settlers in addition to African American and English. So if your family has been here for a while, there's a good chance their name is from one of these groups.

There used to be many more French names a couple hundred years ago. After all, St. Louis was a French king and many of the city fathers were French. But mostly you only see the French influence in place names.

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fromwayuphigh@reddit

I thought immediately of "Dutchtown" (and Benton Park). Germans were probably much more influential in how the city developed from around 1850 onward.

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Whatever-ItsFine@reddit

I'd agree with your timing. From what I understand, it was primarily Bavarians. Some of them even started German-styled wineries in the rural areas around St. Louis. And don't forget Budweiser started by the Busch family.

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fromwayuphigh@reddit

Hermann, MO (natch) in particular. The Anheuser family also had a property in town before they bought their big spread out at Kimmswick.

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splatgoestheblobfish@reddit

Definitely. My husband and I are both from St. Louis, and we both have very German last names. And a large number of people I grew up with do as well. When we got married, I hyphenated my last name. Now it's very long and has way too many extra letters in it. I constantly get comments like, "Wow. You guys are just a little bit German, huh?"

On a side note, I worked at the Zoo for a time, and I had a man from Germany come in to rent a stroller. We had to get the names and phone numbers of anyone who rented anything from us. When I asked for his name, he said he'd just write it, because it would be easier that way. I took one look at it and pronounced it correctly. He was very surprised, but I explained we have tons of German last names around here.

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tangledbysnow@reddit

Super common. Omaha and Nebraska were mostly settled by Germans with some Norden/Nordic, Polish, Irish and Italians - specifically Sicilian.

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guerochuleta@reddit

I live in a city called Pflugerville. Yeah, German names are pretty common.

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ZestfulClown@reddit

My grandmother was the first in her family to speak primarily English as opposed to German and our family has been here since the early 1800s. WWI changed a lot about the US

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bankingandbaking@reddit

Very common in mid-Missouri!

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lupuscapabilis@reddit

I have one

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Yankee_chef_nen@reddit

In southeastern Pennsylvania my German surname is fairly common. Enough so that I was picking up an item I ordered in western North Carolina and it turned out that the clerk was from my father’s home town and asked me if I was from there. I’m the first one not born there since 1640. The first few generations here my ancestors had 7+ sons each generation so we’re everywhere in southeastern Pennsylvania.

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NotYourScratchMonkey@reddit

This is an interesting question. I live in Texas so, especially in the Hill Country, there are a lot of people of German decent. However, day to day, I just don't even think about where a last name comes from most of the time.

Sometimes, I guess, yeah, especially around St. Patrick's Day where particularly Irish-sounding names make stick out (but, honestly, most are probably Scottish but they just go with it) .

There are so many flavors of international sur-names in the U.S. it just kind of gets mish-mashed together.

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xxxjessicann00xxx@reddit

Very common, including my own.

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iliveinthecove@reddit

The German part of my family changed the spelling of their name well before either WW just to make it easier, celebrate being American.

But yeah, I know plenty of people with German surnames

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GF_baker_2024@reddit

Very common due to multiple waves of German immigration to the midwest. I had friends in high school whose parents or grandparents were German immigrants.

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Taiwandiyiming@reddit

Growing up in the Midwest, German surnames are very common. My surname is Norwegian, but my maternal side's surname is German.

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Kevincelt@reddit

I’m from the Midwest, so pretty common, myself included. Many German Americans did anglicize their names during ww1, but the majority did not. Because of that, German surnames, especially in the Midwest are incredibly common.

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Miss_Might@reddit

Very common in Minnesota.

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zugabdu@reddit

Here in Minnesota, extremely common. In Florida where I grew up, they were common too, but not as much as they are here.

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jegalgah@reddit

Zinzinnati has a bunch!

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fleetiebelle@reddit

Yeah, I grew up in Cincinnati with German Catholics and German Jews on the family tree.

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theflyinghillbilly2@reddit

I grew up in a rural area where one of the nearest small towns was settled by German immigrants. There’s wineries galore, grapes growing everywhere, the Catholic Church has murals with German writing. So pretty common there!

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wearingabear11@reddit

My family found out recently that during WW1, my maternal great grandfather changed his last name from a German last name to a much more English sounding last name. This happened in CA where he lived in the Bay area in his later years but filed for his name change in the San Bernardino area. When he was younger

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typhoidmarry@reddit

Here not very. I’m from Ohio—very very common.

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rkgk13@reddit

Very common across the Upper Midwest

People who have studied basic German will enjoy knowing the names' translated meanings

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CRO553R@reddit

My surname is an Americanized German name from when my ancestors came to this country pre-Revolutionary War. It took a couple of generations before the spelling changed from its original version to what it is now.

There are a lot of people with German heritage within my region, and I'm willing to bet most of their names changed at some point as well.

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liminalwanderer30@reddit

The Milwaukee area of Wisconsin has an unbelievably dense amount of German heritage and ancestry floating around, whether people are in touch with it or not. WWI brought extreme prejudice to an ethnic minority that wasn't exactly fast to assimilate, so a lot had to sadly schuck it all for survival. Texas is another strong German area, with many of the range wars fought there between Scots-Irish locals and German immigrants

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OldClerk@reddit

Very! Lots of German, Polish, Czech, and Hungarian names here in Baltimore. Baltimore was a big immigration hub for those leaving Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1800s.

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Dax_Maclaine@reddit

Not the most common type of last name around here, but definitely a good bit and enough for me not to pause and think about it.

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BreakfastBeerz@reddit

Americanizing German surnames happened long before WWII. The first record of my German surname with its current spelling (which incidentally is Irish) was in 1879. My wife's German surname was Americanized in 1915 (also to Irish) during WWI.

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misterlakatos@reddit

Somewhat common in the Northeast; however, I'd say they are far more common in the Midwest. I'd be willing to bet 70% of Midwesterners have at least some German in them.

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FoolhardyBastard@reddit

Basically every white person in WI has either an Irish, German, or Scandinavian surname. It’s extremely common.

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only-a-marik@reddit

Extremely common in and around Pennsylvania, less so once you get towards the New York area. I personally have a couple German surnames (Geiger, Fetzer) in my family tree.

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ThisOnesforYouMorph@reddit

Hell even the English surnames usually have German roots. I have a friend whose last name is Hunt, but before WWI, his family name was Jager.

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cdb03b@reddit

Very. But I live in Central Texas which was one of the major points of settlement for German Immigrants.

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RoseFeather@reddit

I was born with a German last name. The spelling was slightly anglicized at some point, but not because of either world war and the German origin is still recognizable. I happened to marry someone else with a German-origin last name, but I don't know the history of this one or if/when it was changed.

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MrLongWalk@reddit

Common enough that you would not really notice them, though not as common as Irish or French Canadian

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Gladyskravitz99@reddit

My ex and our grown kid have a very German last name that a lot of people have trouble spelling and pronouncing. I used it for almost ten years and it was the first time I experienced living with a foreign name.

Anyway, like you say, most names I encounter now are just German-ish. Although there are more actual Germans, with German names, in my current location thanks to a nearby factory headquartered/begun in Germany.

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210poyo@reddit

Central tx- very common

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Plantayne@reddit

Quite uncommon, I’d say. In Florida most surnames are Anglo-Saxon or Spanish.

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ebinsugewa@reddit

Demographics of MA say German heritage is around 5-6%. Anecdotally I think the frequency of German surnames I encounter is much lower than that.

New England is easily one of the least German regions in the country.

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SingingGal147@reddit

I currently live in Pittsburgh and it is fairly common, though likely on an equal occurance with the Italian and Polish last names.

We have a fairly active German cultural club but you don't need to be of German heritage to join.

My German ancestors came over in the 1860s and settled in Iowa and never changed the names.

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So pretty much almost nilch