Origins of the names in Hitler's cabinet

November 12, 2007 9:07 AM

Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Ribbentrop, Göring -- what are these surname origins?

It's next to impossible to Google anything about the meanings of these surnames due to their extensive legacy with WWII and Nazi Germany, so I figured I'd ask here. Needless to say they (or some of them) all had a personality cult, so I am wondering what the names conjured up in the German mind.

posted by zek to writing & language (9 comments total)

This site will come in handy. Slightly out of date, though. It links to a page full of name changes in Germany, including from that of Himmler.
posted by parmanparman at 9:43 AM on November 12, 2007

Hitler
2nd hit from googling "etymology hitler" (sometimes! Keep hitting search and this link will appear and disappear again between "ARYAN" and "The Uncommon Use of Proper Names"). No such luck for the other names.
posted by solotoro at 10:34 AM on November 12, 2007

Wikipedia says that , among other possible origins, Hitler comes from Hittler meaning "one who lives in a hut."

The Wikipedia article also recounts the famous story about how Hitler's pop, Alois, was known by the surname Schicklgruber when he was younger.

Many people, including William Shirer who wrote "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," have pointed out the possible complications of Hitler rising to power with such a tongue-twister of a surname.

Of course, that didn't stop Arnold in California.
posted by Gordion Knott at 10:41 AM on November 12, 2007

solotoro - great link.

It says that Hitler really comes from the word for "hatter", and was in fact a common Jewish name. It asserts that Adolf H. made up the story of it coming from "Hutler" (u should have umlaut) which means hut-dweller (something having to do with gathering salt).

It further theorizes that Adolf H. took a lot of grief for his Jewish last name at the school he attended as a boy, and goes out on a limb and asserts that this led to his great hatred of Jews.
posted by amtho at 10:57 AM on November 12, 2007

You're unlikely to find the answers online; what you need is a book of German surnames and their etymologies. This Wikipedia article cites Rosa and Volker Kohlheim, Familiennamen: Herkunft und Bedeutung von 20000 Nachnamen (Duden 2000), ISBN 3-411-70851-4; I suggest you see if your library has/can get a copy. If you need help with Englishing the etymologies, post them here or e-mail them to me and I'll translate them.
posted by languagehat at 11:14 AM on November 12, 2007

Aha, here's an out-of-copyright book (August Friedrich Pott's Die Personennamen, insbesondere die Familiennamen und ihre Entstehungsarten, 1859); it says Ribbentrop is one of the many names in -dorf/torp/torf/trop 'village' (cf. English names like Oglethorpe), and I presume the Ribben- part is a Low German version of High German Rippe 'rib.' On p. 149 it mentions Göring along with Göhring, Görling, and other similar forms, but unfortunately just says they don't seem to be related to Gehre. None of the others are there (or at least Google Books search doesn't turn them up, which isn't necessarily the same thing). Oh well, it's a start...
posted by languagehat at 11:28 AM on November 12, 2007

But wait, this book (Karl Gustaf Andresen's Ueber deutsche Volksetymologie, 1899) says Ribbentrop is a village in Hannover that originally belonged to a guy named Ribbo! My 'rib' guess is exploded. (None of the other names.)
posted by languagehat at 11:32 AM on November 12, 2007

I suspect Himmler may be related to Himmel "heaven." Google turns up a few pages that agree.
posted by nebulawindphone at 2:00 PM on November 12, 2007

Well, yeah, that's an obvious thing to suspect, and I suspected it too, but that doesn't make it right. In the first place, it's not at all clear what Himmler ('heaven-er') would mean (it's not actually a German word). Obvious guesses are often wrong (cf. my guess about Ribbentrop above). In short, unless a reputable etymological book says it, there's no point bothering about it.
posted by languagehat at 3:26 PM on November 12, 2007