What's In A Name?

Borchard, Burchard, Burcherdt, Borcherdt, Borchardt, Burchard. There seems to be as many spellings for this name as there are people who carry it. I was told, as a child, that it was originally Borchardt but when my great grandfather originally immigrated to this country, the immigration officers spelled it phonetically (Borchard) and the spelling has stuck ever since.

If you assume they did not spell the name correctly, what is the correct spelling and which one is right? I tried checking by popularity; a Google search:


Burchardt 574,000 hits
Borchard 734,000 hits
Borchardt 1,480,000 hits
Burchard 1,670,000 hits

I guess this means that the Burchard spelling wins? This is, of course, time sensitive (6/09). The next search will result in higher numbers.

On Facebook, the largest social net work in the world today each of the spelling came up with “over 500” hits except for Burchardt (over 450). More digging?

A new friend (Greg Borchard) and fellow family tree climber posed an idea to me recently. What if we could find the links to all of us who are carrying the “Borchard”, or similar, moniker? There must be someplace where it all came together; one family, the “tap root” of the tree.

Sister Cecilia Voelker has tracked my branch of this family back to Henning Borchard born 1974. The place names start in Werxhausen Germany near Nesselroden and Duederstadt, other German City/Village names that turn up in my family blood-line. Did it all start there with Henning in Nesselröden, Gottingen, Niedersachsen, Germany?

Origins of Names
In the introduction of “German Names”, Hans Bahlow, states that family names appear to trace their roots to a number of things that were part of the fabric of the early culture in central Europe (Germania). We are talking about societies that transformed from a “hunter-gatherer” tribal culture to a more sedentary “agrarian” culture that still retained some of its early “tribal” elements of social structure. Names reflected the everyday realities of the Middle Ages in all walks of life from farmer and burgher to a knight or cleric.

“The names represent a highly detailed reflection not only of the medieval agrarian economy (with in its [feudal] system of fiefdoms, tributes, and indentured servitude) but to an even greater extent that of the emerging urban culture (with its trade guilds and the widespread separation of labor between production and distribution). The inventory of family names was further enriched by the large group of ever-popular personal surnames that were given to a “dear” neighbor because of conspicuous physical or mental traits )so-called characterizing or attributive names). Through these sorts of names the bluntness of folk humor often became apparent.” (Dictionary of German Names by Hans Bahlow)

The more common older surnames were linked to a place of residence. During the time from 1150 until 1550, with the spreading of Christianity through the Germanic areas, there was a great reduction in the diversity of family sir names. During this period the influx of “Christian” names that were recorded in baptismal records.

For the most part, family names did not have a “written” tradition until the advent of the Gutenberg printing process (1440) and even then, only the most important, historically or religiously significant family names found their way into written form. It is estimated that the written form of German family names did not become fixed until around 1600 or later and was subject to regional spelling habits, Low German and High German forms of transliteration, etc.

From my “Dictionary of German Names” I found two spellings that seemed to cover all the current spellings very well and, surprisingly, were close in geography and similar in their roots.

Burghard(t), Burchard(t) and others. Lower German, Borchardt, Borchers; popular personal name in the Middle Ages, the name was favored by the Alemannic Area by the Dukes Burkard (hence numerous short forms like Buri, Burk, Burkle, Buck, older: Buggo, and Butschi); northern Germany and central Germany short forms are Bosse, Busse. Borcher (frequent in lower German area) patronymic (father’s name) of Borchert (Borchardt upper Germany Burkard) Westphalian Borcharding (likewise Humperding. Sieverding) Concerning Borchers = Borcher’s son’. Confer, see/compare Ahlers, Ehlers, Elvers, and others. Bosse is a short form see this Corchardus Soltman, Rostock 1288, Henneke Borchardesson, Suire on Rugen Island, 1316. Patronymic Borchling (Hamburg.) from Borcherding. From lower Rhine area, Westphalian area Borghardt, Borgartz. Confer, see/compare Borerding, Borgert.

Borchers (frequently in lower German area): Pattronymic (father’s name) of Borchert (Borchardt, upper German Burkhard), Westphalian area Borcherding (likewise Humperding, Sieverding). Concerning Borchers=”Borcher’s son”, confer, see/compare Ahlers, Ehlers, Elvers and others. Bosse is a short form, see this, Borchardus Soltman, Rostock 1288, Henneke Borchardesson, suire of Gugen Island, 1316. Patronymic Borcharling (Hamburg) from Borcherding. From the lower Rhine-Westph area Borghardt, Borgartz. Confer, see/compare Borgerding, Borgert.
From Dictionary of German Names by Hans Bahlow C2002

Perhaps the “roots” the Borchard name can be found in German history and the geographical areas closely aligned with the spelling of the name. I know about Werxhausen, Nesselroden and Duederstadt in Germany. These cities are located in a German region known as Thuringia that has played an important role in German history going back to the Roman conquests, the invasion of Attila the Hun and the formation the German state.

In researching our name I’ve had to become a student of German history and the development of German family names. I still have a lot to learn but I thought I would share what I’ve found so far. I’d also like to comment on some “oral history” that I heard as a young boy.

Oral History and the “Tribe”
My mother told me stories about our “noble” bloodline; she mentioned a Von Borchardt. She also mentioned the mechanical genius that ran in the family back to the old country. She spoke of how my great grandfather or great-great grandfather developed the early car and invented several other items that are attributed to other inventors. She got all of her stories from my grandfather, Louis H. Borchard, Christian Borchard’s son in the second family.

When I was young, I remember feeling very proud to be part of such a clever and honorable family. I could see it in the way my grandfather and father manufactured “custom” farm equipment and modified standard equipment to meet the unique needs of our farm. I could also see it in the respect granted to my grandfather around Ventura and Oxnard by the other “old families” and could feel that respect personally when someone learned my name was “Borchard”.

Then I came to feel that this oral tradition was boastful and was meant to give a young boy a feeling of self worth and pride. I grew threw these stories and came to take them with a grain of salt even though I knew that they had to have originated with my grandfather and ultimately with my great grandfather Christian.

Funny thing is that there is some basis for this oral tradition. While not immediate, there is royalty in the family name and it appears that the family may have had “roots” in Swabia, an area of Germany that spawned such great family names as Einstein, Daimler, Diesel, etc.

In 892, Burchard became the Duke of Thuringia. On August 3, 908 he was killed in a battle against the Magyars fought is Saxony. His army was defeated and there were no further dukes of the Thuringii although they remained a distinct people, eventually forming a “landgrviate” in the High Middle Ages. Duke Burchard left two sons, Burchard and Bardo who were expelled from Thuringia by Henry the Fowler in 913. Incidentally, it was thought that Duke Burchard was originally from Swabia, a center of intellect, wealth and power even in the first millennium.

Henry I the Fowler was the duke of Saxony from 912 and the King of the Germans from 919 until his death in 936. He was the first of the Ottonian Dynasty of German kings and emperor, he was generally considered to be the founder and first king of the medieval German state, known until then as East Francia.

Thuringin
So what has all this to do with the Borchard Tribe? Thuringin is the district in Germany where the Villages of Duederstadt, Nesselroden and Werxhausen are located. The Thuringii or Toringi were a Germanic Tribe that resided in the Harz Mountains of central Germania around 280. They apparently displaced the previous inhabitants of the area, the Alemanni, who migrated south to the region named after them, Alemannia.

The Thuringii established an empire in the late 5th century that reached its peak in the mid-6th century. The empire was conquered by the Franks in 531-532. The Thuringii rebelled under Frankish rule and again became an independent state until it came under Saxon rule towards the end of the 7th century.

With all the tribal conflict during this period, perhaps the most significant was the conquest of this region by the Huns in the mid 4th Century. To maintain perspective, the Visigoths entered Italy in 401 and then they, with a little help form the Ostrogoths, sacked Rome in 410. It is generally agreed that the “fall of Rome” occurred in 476 as the “Germanic Tribesman” take over Rome.

While the Germanic Tribes were conquering Rome, the Huns were busy trying to conquer the Germanic lands to the north. There were complex inter-tribal intrigues and more-significant inter-mingling of races. Archeologists have found signs of inter-mingling between the Huns and the women of the Germanic Empire. There is also evidence that Thuringii men sought marriages with Ostrogotic and Lombard women. Blood lines and family names must have become terribly muddled during these times of warfare, conquest and turmoil.

So, tracking back the Borchard name and blood line becomes horribly muddled before the 6th and 7th centuries. By the beginning of the 9th century when the name Burchard first appears in historical records, we can only surmise that the antecedents of our family must have been part of a great warrior culture that participated in one of the greatest conquest of European history; the sack of Rome. Our ancestors included the blood lines of the Huns, the Visigoths, Ostrogoth’s, Lombard’s and Saxons. So what’s in a name?

I think that we all are “linked” as members of the human race; I also think that our “blood-lines” sometimes explain part of the “traditions” that are part of our daily lives. Perhaps this will, at some point in time, become more a part of my “family” understanding and accepting a certain amount of “eccentricity” that seems to carry forward from generation to generation in the decedents of the “Borchard Tribe” or whatever “tribe” we have descended from.