[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Name translations

[Günther Böhm]

Otto schrieb:

>No Richard,
>[...]
>Your surname has nothing to do with beans.
>Kidney or fava, red bean, purple royalty, or whatever. . .
>and probably never did.
>The German spelling of of 'bean' = 'bohne', the plural of bean is  
>'bohnen'.
>Bohnsack=beanbag.
>[the old Prussian village of 'Bohnsack' is today known as  
>'Sobieszewo' and a going concern on the Baltic coast a stone's throw  
>east of Gdansk.]
>[...]
>What is a Boehn?
>Perhaps  Günther Böhm can enlighten us. . .?
>Is it a variation of 'Böhm-Boehm'?   Boehm-ert ... ?
>Boehm'ert-pronounced Baim'ert.  The ai is the same sound as in 'air'.
>

Hello Richard & Otto,
maybe he can but not because of his surname.

Though the trails of onomastical erosion, misunderstanding and again 
erosion are complicated, replacing an m by an n would be too unusual.
More likely the name developed in the following way:

BERNHARD [from baerenhart = hard as a bear] was a very common christian 
name since the early middle ages (Saint BERNHARD of Clairvaux was born 
abt. 1090 at Fontaine castle near Dijon). The name was eroded to BENERT 
, BENNERT or BEHNERT in northern Germany and to BANNERT or BAHNERT in 
more southern regions (in French speaking countries to BERNARD, BÉNARD 
and BANARD).

Then there must have been an official misunderstanding. In northern 
Germany ö (oe) normaly turns to (plattdeutsch) e. Any priest or parish 
official then must have tried to restore the name into "hochdeutsch" and 
turned it by misunderstanding from BEHNERT into BÖHNERT. I found several 
similar cases in Silesian parish registers where BANNERT was (correctly 
though not very sensitively) restored into BERNHARD.

Guenther Boehm