[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Origin of given ame ILSE

[Günther Böhm]

Eduardo Kommers schrieb:
> Hello!
>
> Is there any suggestion of the origin place/country/region where the given name ILSE was more common, out of Volhynia?
> I'm asking this because I found a marriage record in Zhitomir from 1885, the bride was ILSE KOMMERS, anyway there is no other record with the name ILSE.
>
> Thank you,
> Eduardo

Hello Eduardo,
Ilse is an abbrevation of Elisabeth and has been quite common in all 
Germany about hundred years ago. Some more centuries resp. decades back 
the abbrevations were Ilsebe, Ilsabe and Ilsabein.
Ilse was also the given name of one of my aunts (born 1908, sister of my 
father). Also the abbrevation Ilse is centuries older but was then just 
in use by the higher nobility. In the central German Harz mountains you 
find a river Ilse (and three others elsewhere), a town Ilsenburg and a 
myth about a princess Ilse which was hunted by a count Bodo and on 
horseback she happened to jump over a deep and wide valley whereas Bodo 
crashed down into the depths. The earliest *real* Ilse I found is Ilse 
von GERA, born after 1370, daughter of Heinrich V. von GERA, followed by 
Ilsabe [Ilse] v.STEINBERG, * abt 1360, + after 1399.

Günther