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ArchivesRe: What do the surnames Hambright and Hambrecht mean?
in reply to a message by I like old names
Hambright is an Americanization of the German name Hambrecht from the ancient Germanic personal name Haginberht, a compound of hagin ‘enclosure, protected place’ and berht ‘bright, famous’.
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This *hagin is merely the genitive of *hago which in other areas appears as Hage-or Haghe- in names. High German commonly reducing the nominative to Hag fairly early may have produced this use of the oblique declension to give the required length. The normal derivation of Ham- is Haim- "village, settlement" (the diphthong is long so only one syllable required). A seperate hamm/ham "enclosure" appears unrelated to *hago, and it's geographical provenance more restricted.
This message was edited 11/22/2021, 2:07 PM
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