Die luxemburgischen Familiennamen entlang der historischen Grenze zu Deutschland – Projektskizze und vorläufige Ergebnisse

This article examines the differences and similarities of the family names in the historical and recent Luxembourgish/German border region. Special attention is paid to the role of the historical border before 1815. The motifs of the most prototypic (i.e. most frequent) family names – based on telephone registers – are investigated. An additional focus is put on occupational names and names of origin. The results can be described in three ways: 1) Some features show a distribution across geographical and linguistic borders. 2) Others seem to follow the historical borders of Luxembourg. 3) The distribution of a last group equals the recent Luxembourgish border. The latter is not easy to explain as the nowadays Luxembourg can’t be described as a historical core area. Thus its borders shouldn’t have influenced the emergence of the family names.