Meaning & History
The surname Ermendinger was derived from the older surname Ermatinger, a name connected to the village of Ermatingen on the Swiss shore of Lake Constance, and came into existence at some point during the early 17th or late 16th century when a branch of the Ermatinger family relocated from Schaffhausen, Switzerland, to Mulhouse, Alsace. There is no information on why the spelling of the name was changed. The first known individual to carry this surname was Hans Jakob Ermendinger (1595-aft.1650). One of his descendants eventually married into a French speaking family of Huguenots in Geneva where the name Ermendinger was shortened and adapted to the French language and changed into the surname Erman, which is still in use today.