Re: What do the surnames Hambright and Hambrecht mean?
in reply to a message by Lepic
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