[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] First name Reginald

[Gary Warner]

Gunther,

I guess Eduardo will have to say why he asked.   I thought he was asking 
if Reginald was really a German name.   It appears that in the form 
Reginald that it is not, but when family names get written down by 
descendants years later, they sometimes translate a name into one they 
are familiar with.   If that is the case, I cannot explain why Reginald 
was chosen for the change in South America, since I have always taken 
Reginald to be an English name.

Gary

On 3/22/2012 9:33 AM, Günther Böhm wrote:
> Am 22.03.2012 13:33, schrieb Eduardo Kommers:
>> I would like to know your opinion about the possible origin of the first
>> name Reginald ? (Reginald Hubert born 1829 - son of Jacob and Johanna
>> Hubert)
> Sorry Gary,
> I imagined that Eduardo asked for the actual reason to choose this given name.
> We should consider that in 1829 as much as no one knew the linguistic [i.e. germanic] origin of a given name. The
> motivations were either religious or dynastic which depended on the actual authority of the local priest and landlord.
> In some cases it was familial (name of grandfather, father or godfather). Admittedly, Reginald was an old high German
> name, but it was transported and kept alive or revitalized as a saint's name. In the eighten-fiftees and later,
> literature became a source of given names. So in my family the name Emil originated in the famous educational novel
> "Emile" by Jean Jacques ROUSSEAU and symbolized a growing resistance against the catholic clerus. En passant, its
> religous origin was the late Roman martyr AEMILIUS of Carthage who again was a member of the gens Aemilia, one of the
> most ancient patrician houses at Rome - which of course was not considered by most of the parents. But the linguistic
> source of this Roman name (from Greek Αιμυλος = smart, crafty) was absolutely disregarded.
>
> Günther
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