[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] You clod! WAS: Grudzienski Alternate Name

[Günther Böhm]

AlbertMuth at aol.com schrieb:

>However, my family tradition is that we originated in Alsace-
>Lorraine, where the surname was Demuth. I have lost the link to a French website there 
>that gave the etymology of local surnames, including both Muth and Demuth--"courage" had 
>nothing to do with the origin and historical development of the surname. (Sadly, the link 
>no longer works)
>

Hello Al,
but another one ( 
http://home.t-online.de/home/tommy.bln/Namensdeutung.htm ) is still 
working and states that DEMUTH originates from the old German name 
Dietmuth (tiot = people + muot = power of thinking, soul, heart, mood 
[!], feeling, intention, affection) which was assimilated to the 
christian sounding DEMUTH yet in the middle ages.

By the way, I don't agree with the insult theory. Mostly names like the 
mentioned KLUTH originated from profession or farm names and have been 
applied to character properties much later when the original meaning was 
forgotten. In Middle Lower German Klut (in Russian gluda, in Polish 
gruda) ment lump, clod, farmland. So the name could simply stem from a 
farm with clayey soil. Related location names in Germany - where the 
insult theory doesn't work - are Kl|t (near Detmold, NRW), Kl|tz and 
Kldden (Mecklenburg), Klvtze, 2 x Kldden, Klvden and Kl|den 
(Sachsen-Anhalt), Klotten (Rheinland-Pfalz), Klotzhvfe (Baden-W|rttemberg).

Guenther Boehm
of Hilden, Germany