21 German names I NEVER HEARD OF until I moved to Germany | american in germany 

Hey Dana, are you sure you mean “Cord” and not “Kurt”? Maybe it’s a regional thing, but I’ve never heard “Cord” being used as a name. For me Cord has always just meant corduroy fabric, haha.

Gatte is actually a short version of the word Ehegatte. Which means husband, like you said. There is also the word Gattin or Ehegattin, which means wife.

Most of the names are older, so not many young people have those names. But I think many people are called Moritz here.

Don’t worry about not knowing about Gatte. I had the same confusion with the term Hubby for husband.

The Name Manfred is in History Books. The RED BARON's name was Manfred.

Regarding Manfred: I am surprised that Dana never heard of the Band Manfred Mann's Earth Band, where she should have learned about that Firstname. Regarding Gerhard: I love the old comedy western "The Halelujah Trail" (40 wagen westwärts) where Burt Lancaster plays Colonel Gearhard pronounced like the americanized version of the german Firstname. And please change your pronounciation of Käthe! Do not name these girls a "chain" as Kette is pronounced with a short vowel where Käääääthe should be spoken slower with a looong vowel ;-)

Ich bin Deutsche und habe den Namen Cord bis zu diesem Video noch nie gehört 😅

Cord? I live in Germany and have never heard that name in my life.

As a Belgian,I feel like 80% of these names are the typical names we think of when we think of German names.

As for Käthe: You pronounce it as "Kette". Try coming from the English pronunciation of "Caity" and make it a short "e" at the end as in the English name "Kade". Then you just need to slightly elongate the "ay" sound in the middle and you are at "Käthe".

Isn't the mammoth in Ice Age called Manfred in English?

Berti kann be short for any name with the syllable "Bert" in it. Bertolt, Hubert, Engelbert, Gosbert... the names combined of Germanic name syllables are a bit on the retreat these days, they were chic in the 1920s to 1950s but lost drive afterwards.

Cord is new for me. I am Austrian. Your Käthe sounds like Kette. But all others were perfect. :)

As a German I never heard of the name "Cord". But it makes absolutely sense that it is a short version of Conrad/Konrad.

Moin Dana, danke, dass Du meinen Namen so magst 🤗. Ich habe gelernt, dass das die Verkleinerung des Namens Maria ist und aus dem Friesischen kommt. Ich bin sehr froh über die Wahl meiner Eltern 😊

There's a lot of names you mentioned that I know from famous people: Manfred Mai, Waltraud Meier, Verena Aschauer, Moritz Bleibtreu, Hildegard von Bingen, Jupp Heynckes, Käthe Kollwitz. There's a German movie call 'Free Rainer' coincidentally starring Moritz Bleibtreu. Siegfried will always remind me of Der Ring des Nibelungen. There's also a brand called Engelbert Strauss, that's the first thing that came to mind when you mentioned the name.

Die Bezeichnung "Gatte" für Ehemann, fand ich schon immer gruselig😁

Love that video! Verena sounds Italian to me, and, appropriately, it's derived from Latin "verus". Just learned that Meike is a north German form of Maria - Mary. Many of the names you mentioned have origins in the ancient languages of Old High German and Middle High German with powerful translations. For instance, Berthold is "glänzender Herrscher" = "shining emperor". Käthe = Katharina => Kathrin, -chen being the diminuitive. For perfection, just pronounce it with a long "ä", "Kääthe" Fun fact: Heinz ketchup was invented by Henry (Heinrich=Heinz) John (=Johannes=Hans) Heinz, son of German immigrants to the USA.

Moritz = Maurice, and, yes, it is totally common.

Manfred Mann's Earth Band!

"Have you heard of these names before"? Yes. My grandmother's name made your list. Fun video!

You have never heard of Manfred Mann's Earth Band? (Mighty Quinn, Blinded By The Light, Pretty Flamingo, Ha Ha Said The Clown, Doo Wah Diddy ...)

In Käthe, and Käthchen, the Umlaut has a long „ä“-sound

Someone may have said this but Gatte is not just "husband" but "spouse". If it's the wife alone, it's "Gattin"

Besides Verena, Meike und Moritz these names are only common for middle aged people or elders. But some of them are popular baby names again, for example Kurt (i dont think anyone writes it Cord)

Mein Vorname ist Helge - ich bin männlich. Den Namen gibt es auch öfter in Deutschland und ich kenne auch eine Frau, die den Namen Helge hat, wobei es bei Frauen auch den Namen Helga gibt (HelgE - HelgA). Mein name kann also sowohl von Frauen, als auch von Männern benutzt werden.

Käthe is pronounced with a long Ä. This sound is a little confusing because Germans don't really agree on how to pronounce it: For some it's the same as long E, for some it's like the short Ä just pronounced longer.

Interesting... Moritz, Meike, Reiner and Jupp exist in Dutch as well, just as Maurits, Maaike, Reinier and Joep or Youp. Gerd also exists in Dutch, like former mayor of Maastricht Gerd Leers, although it's more frequently spelled with a _t_ instead of a _d_, like in my name Gertjan. Lieselotte also exists in Dutch, although parts of the name are more frequently used: Lies or Lotte. Another one I was surprised to find in German is Bente, which I'd always presumed was really Dutch. Odd, that :)

I BET you have heard of the name ending -bert before: Think of "Robert"! I guess "Berti" is short for any name with "bert" in it and there are LOTS: Bertram, Hubert, Herbert, Norbert, Gilbert, Dagobert ... Most of the names you mentioned are very common, but only for old people (with the exception of Meike/Maike and Moritz who are still quite popular). They are mostly Germanic names which got out of fashion about 50 years ago so hardly any younger German has those names anymore. But there are a few which are coming back nowadays, like Friedrich or Paul or Karl.

In Northern Germany we have some nice names: Bente, Fenja, Frieda, Jana, Jule, Nele (all female), Heiko, Henning, Jan, Jannis, Jens, Lasse, Nils, Fabian, Sören, Uwe (male)

You must have heard of Bert right? If you have ever watched Sesame Street.

I'm neither German nor in Germany. However, I work at a university and deal with research publications all day, primarily but not exclusively ones written in English. So due to my work, I had seen several of these names before, however I had no idea what language these names were associated with or whether they were common or not.

Many years ago I had a German tour guide in Alaska with the name Manfred, called Manni. He always answered on the phone with “My name is Manni“ (Money). 🤣

yes, everyone having a 'bert' in their name can be called 'Berti' (Engelbert, Adalbert, Berthold, Bertram, Herbert/Heribert, or even the english 'Gilbert') but I don't think it's an 'eingetragener Name', only a Nickname like Jupp for Josef/Joseph And Meike/Maike is a female name as far as I know and not genderneutral. Also, if you give your child a genderneutral name like Robin or Kim you must add another name which is NOT genderneutral so that you can tell a persons gender based on their names for example: If you name your kid Robyn you have to give the child a second name like Robyn Maximilian or Robyn Heidi etc. etc. (I personally think that rule should be abolished)

Engelbert Humperdinck is a word wide known Name. Berti is often used for Herbert not really for Engelbert which to my knowledge is never shortened

Most of the names you mentioned are Germanic names. They are less common now and mostly associated with older people. Germanic names tend to consist of one or two elements that signify positive character traits the parents wanted the child to have or things they wished upon them. Most of them have to do with war because the Germanic tribes were pretty busy conquering Europe in the olden days. I put the modern German and/or English words in parenthesis to explain the meaning. Of course the names did not necessarily all come up at the same time and language is constantly evolving, so some elements look different at different starting points. To get to their modern forms, these names often went through a millennium of language change, so they might have looked and sounded a bit different at the beginning. magan (Mann/man - in the sense of manliness/strength) + frid (Frieden/peace) = Maganfrid = Manfred ragin (Rat/advice) + hari (Heer/army) = Raganhar = Rainer ragin (Rat/advice) + hard (hart/hardy, tough) = Raginhard = Reinhard ger (Speer/spear) + hard (hart/hardy, tough) = Gerhard kuoni (kühn/brave) + rad (Rat/advice) = Kuonirad = Konrad hlud (laut/loud in the sense of famous, well known) + hari (Heer/army) = Hludhari = Lothar sieg (Sieg/victory) + frid (Frieden/peace) = Siegfried hrod (Ruhm/fame) + swinth (geschwind/swift, the meaning leaning more towards strong at that point though) = Hrodswintha = Roswitha ermen (alle/all) + gard (Garten/guarded in the sense of a protected enclosure) = Ermengard = Irmgard wald (Gewalt, walten/power, ruler) + Thrud (a very strong daughter of Thor) = Waldthrud = Waltraud odal (the rune for inheritance) + ric (reich/rich) = Odalric = Ulrich (m)/Ulrike (f) hild (-/war,battle) + gard (Garten/guarded in the sense of a protected enclosure) = Hildegard heim (Heim/home) + ric (reich/rich) = Heimric = Heinrich, shortend to Heinz in some regions Karl (Kerl/strong guy) Bert (-/bright) engel (Engel/angel) + bert (-/bright) = Engelbert So now you already have some puzzle pieces to make new names, some of them might sound familiar: ger (Speer/spear) + Thrud (a very strong daughter of Thor) = Gertrud hari (Heer/army) + bert (-/bright) = Herbert hrod (Ruhm/fame) + bert (-/bright) = Hrodbert = Robert hrod (Ruhm/fame) + ric (reich/rich) = Hrodric = Roderich which became Rodrigo in Spanish and Roderick in English ric (reich/rich) + hard (hart/hardy, tough) = Richard wald (Gewalt, walten/power, ruler) + hari (Heer/army) = Waldhari = Walther This turned into quite the deep dive, my apologies! Have fun discovering more of these when seeing names anywhere from now on :D The other names you mentioned are "imported" names. Most of them came into German with the rise of Christianity because people started naming their kids after saints and bible characters.

Lieselotte is my grandmother's name, it comes from Elisabeth (Liese/Lisa) and Charlotte. 😉

Verena is actually derived from Greek „pherenike“ (the one that brings victory), and is this actually related to the brand „Nike“, which is the name of the Greek goddess of victory.

The name "Lieselotte" is featured in Erich Kästner's book "Das doppelte Lottchen" ("Lottie and Lisa" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottie_and_Lisa) where parents name there twin girls Liese and Lotte splitting their granny's name Lieselotte. The story has been adapted as "The Parent Trap" movies in 1961 (featuring Hayley Mills) and again in 1998 (featuring Lindsay Lohan).

old german names often consist of two parts having a distinct meaning. So you can combine Fried-, Adel, Bald-, Bert-, Kuni-, Ehren-, even Hilde- (and more) with -bert, -helm, rich to get male names, or with -linde, -lotte, -liese, -trude, -hilde (and more) to get female names. see wikipedia for it :)

In Switzerland "Verena" is often shortened to "Vreni". Do you know the name "Ullrich"? That one is often shortened to "Ueli" here.

Hey Dana, I think Cord is a very pretty or handsome name and always thought so since first stumbling upon a Cord (around the age of 22 and having spent most of these 22 years in Germany). I didn't know though (or probably forgot) that historically it comes from Conrad and carries the same meaning! So thanks for the (re-)enlightenment! :-)

Hey, don't you know the British pop star, Manfred Mann? "Pretty Flamingo", "Do wah diddy diddy", ...

I’m from USA and lived in Deutschland from 2001-2004 and first heard the name “Katherina” aka “Kati” when I lived there and totally fell in love with it! I named my first daughter Katherina and she is almost 16 years old now!! I’ve wanted to move back to Deutschland every since but haven’t been able to... yet!!

Dana, There used to be a German restaurant in Tequesta, about 30ish miles from your old home in Florida. The owners were Horst & Verena. BTW, Horst is a name I've never heard anywhere else. I was sad to discover the restaurant had closed about 15 or 20 years ago.

To answer your central question: YES, I´ve heard all of those and it makes me wonder that even some of them are that unknown abroad. Pretty shure, that you can find some heritages for all of them (digging deep enough), that you can link to an actual american equivalent? Btw, I really love that courious joy you seem to have while exploring new things.Please don´t lose it.

I agree that Lieselotte is a sweet name. For me, it will forever be linked to Swiss actress Lieselotte Pulver, nicknamed "Lilo", because I grew up watching the German version of Sesame Street when Lilo Pulver was a regular on the show.

You never knew Bertolt Brecht, the German playwright and poet? I can't say I was super familiar with him, but I knew the name. He is mostly just used as a passing reference, though, in movies and television, usually by his surname. If you haven't seen the German film The Lives Of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) one of the Stasi agents reads a Brecht work. Great movie that received the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. By the way, I have been bingeing your older videos, and now know why your name is pronounced the way it is. It was driving me crazy so now I can move on.

Late comment: "Käthe", like "Moritz", is also just a germanized name, this time its origin is late classical greek "Katharina" - or Catherine in english. With the spread of Christianity the name became popular in all of Europe with local forms like "Kate", "Katrin", "Carina", "Yekaterina", "Kitty", "Aikaterine", "Caitlyn", "Katia", "Karen", "Katlyn", "Katinka", "Katrianna" or "Kathareu" (amongst hundreds more).

Meike or Maike is a girl's name of - if I remember that right - old German/ Frisian origin. Male versions would be Meik/Maik or Meiko. Those names with -gard or -hold are probably of Germanic origin. Käthe is a nick name for Katharina or Katharine (my God mother's name is Katharina but everyone just calls her Käthe), same goes for Änne, which could be one for Anne or Anna. Käthchen or Ännchen are diminutive versions to those, they could both be used to endear or belittle someone or something (like many names/words with -chen or -lein, or in Swiss Getman probably - li). And I'm pretty sure Bert or Berti could be nicknames for any (male name) with "Bert", regardless of it's position in the full name ^^'

In Austria, the nickname for somebody called „Joseph“ would be „Peppi“ or „Sepp“

Great video again! 👍🏻 But if you haven’t heard Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Blinded By The Light, you must be from another planet 😄

Fun fact: Heinz‘ parents originally came from Kallstadt, Germany. And this town has an another famous citizen. And I won’t write down his name here. But the current president of USA has some roots in Kallstadt. His grandparents came also from this little town

Meike, either with an e or an a (Maike) are girls names. For Jupp (pronounce the u like the two os in school), Jupp Hainkes was a trainer of a soccerteam, Jupp is mostly common in the northern part of germany.

I have a colleague named "Rainer" and the name of my a deceased uncle was "Reiner". Another "Reiner" is "Reiner Calmund", at present a manager of Laverkusen soccer team ("Bayer Leverkusen"). And perhaps you have heard about the singer / songwriter "Reinhard May". So theese are 3 different names.

A funny one is "Dieter" (from "Dietrich"). Then there are some hard to pronounce names like Achim, Joachim or Jürgen. Sometimes you find "germanized" versions, like "Maik" instead of "Mike". When I was a child I didn't like my name "Daniel", but today I'm glad it's common and easy to pronounce in English.

The Manfred Mann also had a number one hit in the US Charts. Do wah diddy. Cats often named Moritz in Germany

First of all thank YOU for your last video. It's good to hear that we share the same fears and thoughts. Anyway some of the names you say in this video were new to me. When I hear Hildegard, I think of Olaf because there is a scene in Frozen 2 where he's searching for a Hildegard (at least in German) 😂😂

Hi Dana, I´m a northern german. You´ll find tons of strange names here, especially in the frisian regions. My Brother is named Jasper Rickmer and a sister Peerke Ragna. I have friends named Enno and Onno, Tjalk, Wiebke, Triesche, and so on. Have a nice day! Dettmar

Wow, you mentioned my grandmother's, grandfather's, mother's and brother's name. The last one has a slightly other spelling and it's not very common, I'd say. But it was in your video! 🙂

Hahahahahahaha, Im Gerd and I just love the way You pronounce it. So cute! Have another great da in our german paradise! :) :)

At our school here in Germany there are at least two People named "Moritz", so it is in some places a common name. :)

39 years ago I was born in Germany and nearly all my life I lived here- and I never heard "Cord" as a name. I only know "Corduroy pants" (Cordhosen). All the other names I know. Names I heard for the first time when I was aduld: Reinhild, Mats, Bela, Wendelin, Silas,, Euthymia, Praxedis, Malou, Tialda,

Berti is also short for Herbert (and any other name with 'bert' in it). My grandpas name is Herbert but he doesn't like "Berti" so he gets called "Heppy" (pronounced like "happy") by everyone. Have you ever met or heard the names Beke (f), Sören (m), Dörte (f), Mats (m), Frauke (f), Arne (m), Traudel (f) or Eberhard (m)? In my opinion these are some pretty unusual names to foreigners. *I know at least one person with each name who is younger than 30.

I think a lot of kids that were born in 97/98/99 got named Moritz, because i guess that was just a popular name to give your kid at that time. At least i had a lot of Moritzs in all the years i went to school and i was born in 98 :)

I know a few here in my little village on the Mediterranean, Ulrike, and Gudrun are among them.

I am quite puzzled on how you can not know the name Manfred. It is known even in the US. What about Manfred Mann? Or Manfred the Mammoth from Ice Age?

As a Dutch, Manfred definitely sound typical German, Meike is common in the Netherlands, as well as Gerd/Gert/Gerard. Lieselotte/liselotte is pretty common here as well.

I heard most of these names before, but not all. The Heinz brand was started by a family of that name, and one prominent member was even a US Senator, until he was killed when his a plane small plane he was traveling in crashed with a helicopter crash above an an elementary school in Pennsylvania. His window is currently married to former Senator and Secretary of State John Kerry. Rainer I probably heard about from the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke.

Try listenning to the Oldies from the 50's and 60's and you will have a very new variety of german names like Anneliese, Margot, Catharina, Marita, Rosita, Lotte, Elfriede, Hannes, Huber ...

I would say all of them except the abbreviations like Cord oder Jupp are common in Germany. Most of them are names of the around 50's Generation... Many names have "generation cycles" here, means they become popular again after being "out" for 1 to 3 generations. An example is Quirin; Quirins nowadays are either in their 80's or just had their 5th birthday...

Ehegatte is an oldish word for Ehemann. I've born and lived in Germany all my life but I've never heard the name Cord before I watched your video. Hope you and yours are well. You're getting through this together, even if you're apart. Big hugs from me.

Meike/Maike is usually considered female but Eike is male, though quite uncommon. Irmgard was my great grandmother and Waltraut her sister :D Another topic you might find interesting are the different writing of names depending on location. Former west Germany: Mike. Former east Germany: Maik. Käthe: you need a longer Ä,softer t, right now you are saying Kette and Kettchen :)

As a Swiss these names you mentioned are all very German to me. Apart from Verena, Moritz and Käthi, they aren't common. Fabio is a common name. Lothar is for me the huge storm from 1999 and Roswitha is the bartender in Harry Potter. The parents of my former boss were called Waltraud and Horst (both Germans). I always thought of Wald (forest) and the words Forst/Förster (forester) What was Heinz for you was Racoon for me. It was just a brand for a backpack for me.

Two of my best friends are brothers and one is called Max and the other is called Moritz .... Awesome !! Another friend is called Hannah and she studied in Japan. In Japan Hannah is not a name, it´s the word for flower. The Japanese kept saying that their name is so cute.

Don’t you know „Manfred Mann‘s Earth Band“?

Manfred is an old German name and is formed from two germanic words. Man = Mann (man), fridu = Frieden (peace) or Sicherheit (safety) => Mann des Friedens (man of peace).

Double names is a thing in Germany. I've seen Franzjoseph, Hansfritz, Hansdieter, and Joaichem--a really good friend of mine. BTW, Aichem is a German name too. Beat, pronounced „Bä - aht," (referring to another one of your videos about quotation marks) is another different name I didn't know existed. Beat is generally, a male name, and Beate is a girls name. I heard „Blader" when I lived in Switzerland. Of course, my favorite German name is „Adelgunda," my great, gr ..., gr ..., gr..., ......... Grandma.

Light and Fluffy, just what I needed

As far as i know, Jupp doesn't exist in Bavaria, here Josef is called Sepp

Perhaps one needs to be of a certain age to know about Engelbert Humperdinck.

Some common American or English names that are (or were until recently) rather unknown in Germany are: Amy, Abigail, Beth, Kenneth, Doug, Hugh, Tyler, Ethan, Ashley, Meg(h)an, Kimberly, Brenda

Bert and Berty are common English names. Käthe is pronounced almost exactly like Kate in English, and is essentially the same name. Both are short for Katherine.

Strangely enough, one of my favorite movies as a young child was the WWII movie "The Enemy Below" with Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens. I always remember the sturdy first mate on the German submarine named "Heinie", a nickname for Heinz, I'm sure. I never knew what the words were to the morale-lifting song the Germans sang as they were engaging in their cat-and-mouse attacks with the American destroyer, but I knew that it was an act of bravado in the face of terror and possible death. A similar movie, "Das Boot", was entirely in German with subtitles.

(You mentioned half of my kinship here.) Roswitha -> Hrotswith von Gandersheim, nun and first female German poet in the 10th century AD Manfred -> King of Sicily (killed 1266, Hohenstaufen dynasty), the Italian city "Manfredonia" is named after him. Heinz (= Heinrich, very common name for German kings) and Cord (= Conrad, Konrad also a very common name of the medieval kings here). These names must have become so popular in Germany that their short variants "Hinz und Kunz" stand for "everyone" (pejorative, just like "Krethi und Plethi", a biblical term).

My name is Elias, in my generation it was very rare. But nowadays there are so much Elias in Germany. It is a verry common neme now.

I've heard of most of these names, but I am from the UK. Manfred might be popular in Germany but anyone over a certain age, i.e old, will remember the English pop band from the 1960's Manfred Mann, named after the drummer, Manfred Mann, who was actually born in South Africa. The reincarnation of this band in the 1970's on onwards, is Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Gerd is a very well known name around the world, with football fans over a certain age, ie.e still old. Gerhard Müller, more commonly known has Gerd, was a Bayren Munich and West German player from the 1960's and 70's My own name originates from Greece

My aunt moved from Germany to the USA when she was an young woman. Her name is Waltraud, but everybody calls her Traudi.

I am an American and I have heard some of these names before. My mother’s younger sister is name Bertie. Even though her real name is Evelyn Roberta. But everyone has always called her Bertie. And Dana I find it very hard to believe that you have never heard of the name Siegfried before you move to Germany. I guess you never heard of the famous Las Vegas magician act Siegfried and Roy before. And just like Siegfried I also find it hard to believe that you never heard of the name Hildegard before. I guess with me being part German and Austrian those names are just very common to me.

Born in Germany and living here for over 50 years now, I never ever heard Cord as a name before. For me Cord is a kind of fabric you make trousers of.

I think Meike is a name that is only used in the German language and I have experienced that in English and Spanish speaking countries a lot of people struggle pronouncing my name. They always think it’s a name for boys and call me Michael 😂 then I always have to say: it’s a German name for girls

I'm so happy you did not ask for Waltraut, Brunhilde, Ignaz or Lothar.;-)

My grandfather's name was Josef and we called him Jupp. I have never heard the name Cord. I know Kurt. What about the name Horst, have you heard that one?

My grandfather‘s name was Engelbert. When he was a child he was called Engerl. 👼 Later in life they called him Bertl.

Jupp is often used as a nickname for Josef in the area around cologne, the bavarian verion would be Sepp

don't you know Manfred Mann? A well known musician

I know you are in southern Germany and these names seem to be more common in that area. I grew up in Germany and don't remember any people my age having these names. Some older people had them but even that was rare.

Cord und Jupp habe ich noch nie gehört 😂😂😂😂

My son's name is Micah, pronounced similar to Meike. I've also seen it spelled as Myka and Mika for girls.

Gerd is also a Scandinavian name, albeit a feminine coded one with a different origin. It comes from the Old Norse word garðr. Something interesting about the name Siegfried is its Scandinavian cognate is a feminine-coded name, Sigfrid (also Sigrid, Sirid), which comes from Old Norse Sigfriðr.