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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

10 famous Germans with surnames that have ridiculous literal meanings

German last names can be quite hilarious when you look at them literally.

Published: 8 October 2019 17:34 CEST
10 famous Germans with surnames that have ridiculous literal meanings
Sahra Wagenknecht's surname has an amusing literal meaning when translated to English. Photo: DPA

1. Albert Einstein: Albert One-Stone

Photo: DPA

The great physicist didn’t remain German for long – he took on Swiss citizenship as a young man to avoid military service. But he was born in Ulm and went to school in Munich.

We would like to think that the Nobel Prize winner was descended from ancestors who only had a single rock to their name (and who were constantly looked down upon by neighbours the Zweisteins).

The actual meaning of the name is rather different. It comes from einsteinen, meaning to surround with stone, and refers to defences built around settlements in the Middle Ages.

2. Franz Beckenbauer: Franz Bowl-Builder

Photo: DPA

It is probably just as well that der Kaiser became the most famous footballer of his generation. How else would he have shrugged off his rather odd surname? Apparently some far-flung forefather was a master of sculpting the curvature of bowls. Are we stretching the matter by suggesting that the great Bayern Munich footballer still lived up to the name by curving elegant passes around the pitch?

3. Helmut Kohl: Helmut Cabbage

Photo: DPA

The deceased former Chancellor was often mocked during his time in office for his lack of refinement. And the fact that his last name meant cabbage didn’t exactly help. Satirical magazine Der Postillon joked after his death in June that he was being given a very special honour for his service to Germany – having a type of vegetable named after him.

4. Dirk Schimmelpfennig: Dirk Moldy-Penny

Photos: DPA/EPA

Why on earth someone ever decided that “Moldy Penny” was a suitable surname, we'll never know. Ancestry.com and Focus magazine say that it was a nickname for misers who let their pennies become moldy because they never spent them.

Whether the family of Germany's Olympic Sports Confederation head still carries on that personality trait is yet another question.

5. Bastian Schweinsteiger: Bastian Pig-Climber

Photos: DPA

German football star Schweinsteiger's last name could literally translate to pig-climber, but more likely it means pig-overseer, like on a farm.

As if his full last name didn't sound silly enough, it has also given the ex-Man United midfielder a regrettable nickname: Schweini (piggy).

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He's not the only one with a lamentable last name: Former national team captain Phillip Lahm is one of the best players Germany has produced in recent years, leading his team to the 2014 World Cup victory. But his surname in German means lame, feeble or slow.

6. Left Party leader Sahra Wagenknecht: Sahra Wagon Servant

Wagenknecht on television programme Anne Will. Photo: DPA/NDR

The word Knecht means servant or farm labourer, so it seems the Die Linke (Left Party) leader has come a long way since her family's presumed more humble beginnings.

7. Author and journalist Jürgen Todenhöfer: Jürgen Death-Yards

Photos: DPA

Ok so this one doesn't exactly translate. But Tod does mean death, and Höfe are courtyards, so naturally our thoughts jump to the morbid when hearing the name of this journalist, who was also once a member of the German parliament (Bundestag) and later became the first Western reporter to get embedded with Isis.

8. Actress Hannah Herzsprung: Hannah Heart-Leap

Photos: DPA

Watching this 34-year-old Hamburg native on screen might just make your Herz leap if you have a crush on the actress, who has appeared in the 2008 German-American drama The Reader.

And it seems she comes from a line of people with feel-good family names: Her mother is designer Barbara Engel (Angel).

9. Carl Bratfisch: Carl Fried-Fish

Fish and chips. Photo: DPA

This Prussian musician composed works such as the Steinmetz March.

How often everyone just assumed he wanted the fish 'n' chips due to his name, Wikipedia does not reveal.

10. Author and pastor Hartmut Hühnerbein: Hartmut Chicken-Leg

Photos: Tohma/Wikimedia Commons, and DPA.

This Lower Saxon-born religious figure was the former president of Christian nonprofit CJD, which does social work and educational training for young people. Pastor Chicken Leg has also written a number of books, including “Just Believe” and “Window of Hope”.

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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