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Re: Suffix/Prefix List
in reply to a message by Menke
Sorry, it should have been hypocoristic, just a convoluted way of saying a pet name. But I should have added that -ma was a patronymic ending, I was just looking it up a minute before hand. They say in the book mentioned below that -ma is hypocoristic and means "man" but that confuses me a little. This is an old list, I should have checked it before I posted that. : (Hmm, the Tot, Tor, Tom thing, I will have to look up where I found that...wait a minute...
I will have to quote for the best explanation:
"The preposition 'tot', corresponding to the High German 'zu' is also found fused in the dialect forms 'Ter, Tor, Ten & Tom'. These are shared with Low German surnames from the Rhineland". - under Dutch surnames in Oxford University's 'A Dictionary of Surnames'.And yes, exte should have been etxe. : )---------------------------------------
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aha, i found some examples at the Meertens Instituut of that: Tombrink as related to Ten Brink.and #-ma# does mean "man".
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