Do most Americans have German surnames?

[Blondie]

What? No. Most German Americans ancestors came over well before the world wars, and the identity of being German American is an afterthought.

There is no reason to change your surname, for most people, so how is keeping it notable?

And danube swabians have arrived to Hungary 300 years earlier than nazis, and tons of them changed their german name into hungarian after the WW2, because germans got many hate and discrimination almost everywhere. We have a very distant relative who live somewhere in West Coast, and he is also changed his german name into english. My dad said it many years ago and i was surprised that he has english name and i thought i have some english ancestry but i have not.

[Latinus]

Very nice thread.

[Hialt]

A lot of Americans do, like a big piece of the pie. Usually, the identifying "give-away" is the "-man" ending to the surname, like "Hickman." I belive the "-man" ending can be found in England, though, too, but rarely, so it's not exclusively "German." Like "Pittman," for example. I think we're dealing, in both cases, with a shared general germanic origin.
There was a lot "Americanization of surnames," in which foreign-sounding names were altered to make them more Anglo-sounding, back when these immigrants arrived in America. So that adds some obscurity to some surnames, but usually there is a clue in the surname hinting at its original form.

[Oneeye]

And danube swabians have arrived to Hungary 300 years earlier than nazis, and tons of them changed their german name into hungarian after the WW2, because germans got many hate and discrimination almost everywhere. We have a very distant relative who live somewhere in West Coast, and he is also changed his german name into english. My dad said it many years ago and i was surprised that he has english name and i thought i have some english ancestry but i have not.

Hungarians actually had an ax to grind with the Nazis, correct?

My mother's maiden name used to be spelled Steger, but it changed to something phonetically similar. The many name changes I've seen do not look intentional at the least. They were common during the 1800s and look like errors. This is probably a big reason why German descended names are not in the top surname list, because there's so many with variant spellings. Most of this happened in the 1800s.

I know Schmidt's, I know Stifflers. I know Hoffmans, Steiners, and Kleins. And many with the suffix -heim. I could go on...

German Americans were not persecuted nor mistrusted, like people make a scene over the Irish about. My family and their neighborhood were questioned during the World wars, and the government must have determined that they were no threat, because nothing came of it. Some downplayed their German roots, but only during the war years.

German surnames abound all over the northern western states because many came over to farm new land. Besides that, there were sizable populations in a few colonial states beforehand.


Americans are not ashamed of our German ancestry. We don't associate it with Hitler, and jokes about Pollocks go over well.

[Hialt]

Very nice thread.

Ol Mortimer used to go by the name of "Inquiring Mind."

[JamesBond007]

Because Wisconsin has the higthest % of germans, that's why. The real reason of name changeing was the both lost ww just like in the case of Europe. Another fact, most americans are just mutts with many different ancestry, so the identity is more important and these americans reported their german ancestry because their identity is connencting to germans, otherwise they would not do it.

'Just mutts' ? What ? Germans and the English are mutts too but a certain kinds of mutt mixture that have been inbreeding somewhat more than Americans but that is splitting hairs. Germans have French admixture in the SouthWest etc... especially, since the 100 years war and also Slavic admixture.

Anyway, most 'white Americans' are probably British isles looking thanks ironically largely to the Irish. For instance, the Irish mixed with the Germans etc... so someone who is Irish and German or Irish+Scandinavian or Irish+German+English etc... is not going to be ethnic German.

For instance, someone walking down the street , in America, who is a mix of Irish+German+English you are most likely going to think that person is English. Me ? I'm Irish+German+English on paper, but I'm from New York, not Wisonconsin, but walking down the street I look Welsh/Cornish/Devonshire BRITISH without the British accent others of my admixture will shift more towards middle England etc..

If I saw Kyle Rittenhouse walking down the street I would think Irish+German or pseudo-Scottish before thinking 'German'. I'm not even sure of his ethnicity either so I could be wrong but that is my impression of his looks.

[Oneeye]

Rittenhouse and the judge, Schroeder both look German (American) to me. Rosenbaum and Huber no. Grosskreutz maybe.

[Anglo-Celtic]

Rittenhouse and the judge, Schroeder both look German (American) to me. Rosenbaum and Huber no. Grosskreutz maybe.

I think that the deceased are Ashkenazi Jewish. I'm surprised that they didn't claim that Kyle was a Nazi, but the predictable and repetitive race card trumps all.

[Anglo-Celtic]

That map needs to be corrected. It doesn't distinguish between Irish and Scots-Irish. These are two distinct populations and it's absurd to lump them together as 'Irish' considering each group's history and antagonism towards each other.

That's a bit exaggerated. There indeed are Irish people in supposed Ulster Scottish regions, and the reverse also is true, but it might be a moot point since they both share Gaelic genes, which makes the past conflicts even worse.

[Oneeye]

Tbh this map is questionable. There are certainly more African Americans in the Bible Belt but they are still a minority. That whole region should be purple being that Anglo-Americans make up for most of the population.

They're the largest plurality, which is what it goes by. White Americans being put on the census as German, Irish, English, and American cuts us up into pies on a graph.