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ArchivesRe: Surname: Hince
in reply to a message by Charlotte
Just go a bit further down on the board, and you will find an educated guess (> Henry).
Andy ;—)
Andy ;—)
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German maybe, but this surname is in Reaney's Dictionary. He gives it a place-name origin, Hints, which occrs in the English Midlands and South-West. My dictionary of place-names derives Hints from a Welsh word for "road." Maybe your German ancestors adopted an English surname similar to their original name.
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You are right, 4 or 5 letters aren't really much to go by. So a different derivation may well be possible. From HINTS to HINCE there is only one little step, so why not.
Now the spelling Hince isn't German, this would be HINZ, and Hince would be an adoption to English. I case the ancestors were German indeed, they may have come across the English name HINCE (see above) and changed the spelling of their name (maybe because they wanted to preserve the TS-sound, at least roughly).
So we would have to ask Charlotte, whether she can find out more about her (?) ancestors.
Andy ;—)
Now the spelling Hince isn't German, this would be HINZ, and Hince would be an adoption to English. I case the ancestors were German indeed, they may have come across the English name HINCE (see above) and changed the spelling of their name (maybe because they wanted to preserve the TS-sound, at least roughly).
So we would have to ask Charlotte, whether she can find out more about her (?) ancestors.
Andy ;—)
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Agreed. This is a subject that fascinates me, the way names change as they cross linguistic boundaries.
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