I recently came across an older—but nonetheless fascinating—article about German surnames that paired nicely with my past article on Tools for German Origins. The article, Jürgen Eichhoff's "Types of GErman Surname Changes in America," was originally published in The Report: A Journal of German-American History in 1996 (pp. 23-25). As someone with a significant amount of German ancestry, a background in the German language, and a general interest in names, I found the article full of compelling examples of documented spelling and pronunciation changed among German-American surnames. 

This article as a whole is well worth reading for anyone with similar interests, but a few key points are especially relevant to genealogy. Most genealogists encounter a surname spelling change at some point. Even without a language barrier, spelling was not standardized until relatively recently, and large portions of the population were illiterate well in the nineteenth century. Despite having many nineteenth-century immigrant ancestors from non English-speaking countries, I have encountered surprisingly few surname changes in my own family tree. 

That said, the changes I have encountered illustrate several of the types Eichhoff discusses. First, he distinguishes between Surnames that "changed" and surnames that "were changes." The former refers to passive changes that occurred gradually over years or generations—often through Anglicization or altered spellings. The latter refers to surnames that were actively changed, such as through translation into English or legal modification. 

My maiden name provides an example of an active change. My paternal great-grandfather dropped the "von" from "von Borstel" in 1928. As a result, while my grandfather grew up with the surname "Borstel," his 1924 birth certificate still lists the original name, "von Borstel." 

Two examples of Fred's signature, before and after dropping the "von" from his surname. 

On my maternal grandmother's side, I have eighteenth-century German ancestors, and in that case it is accurate to say the surname "changed" rather than "was changed." The name evolved from Schuhmacher to Shoemaker, apparently within the lifetime of the immigrant ancestor. 

Eichhoff goes on to categorize surname changes into three groups originally identified by linguist Einar Haugen: retention (no spelling change), revision (a slight spelling change), and substitution (a complete Anglicization or translation). 

Even surnames that retained their original spelling could undergo pronunciation changes. My married name, Kirchner, is a good example. While my husband's family pronounces it as "kurch-ner," the original German pronunciation is closer to "keerk-ner." 

Revisions typically involve spelling changes to accommodate letters that do not exist in English or to preserve pronunciation. In one case, I traced a client's Limbaugh ancestors back to the Lymbach family—a change likely made to preserve the soft, nearly voiceless German "ch" sound, which has no direct equivalent in English. 

Finally, substitutions involve nearly complete respellings or full translations of a surname. Eichhoff cites examples such of Böhme becoming Bame or Beam, and Zimmermann becoming Carpenter. While I do not have examples of this type in my own family tree, I did research for a client whose Graham family originally bore the surname Grossbaum.

Although Eichhoff focuses specifically on German surnames, the patterns he identifies apply far beyond German or German-American genealogy. These types of surname changes are broadly relevant across languages, cultures, and immigrant experiences.