290 ways to write Hegnauer

The name

One name, as the name books write it

Hegnauer: the one from Hegnau, a village in Volketswil near Zürich, first written Hegenowa about 1150. The -er makes a person of a place, as a Zürcher comes from Zürich (where the name comes from).

Of the 6,246 records in the study’s archive that carry the name, 4,399 spell it exactly so. This story is about the other 1,847, and the 289 ways they found to do it.

1150 to 1470

Before it was a surname

In 1281 a man is written C. dictus Hegenower: C., called the Hegnauer. A year later, at Pfäfers, Albert is dictus Ischener et dictus Hegnower, two bynames at once, so neither is yet a family name. At Baden, Wilhelm is von Hegnow in 1399 and Hegnöwer in 1413: the same man, both ways (§1 of the research note).

And in 1366 a Zürich tax clerk crossed out sin koch, “his cook”, and wrote Johans Hegenower above it (the tax books). The cook, it turns out, had a name.

1548 to 1800

Every parish, its own hand

Then the church books begin: Fehraltorf in 1548, Elgg in 1553, Volketswil in 1590. Each pastor writes the name as he hears it and as his pen runs. Elgg goes from Hegnouwer to Hegnauwer to Hegnauer, and after about 1700 it hardly wavers (Elgg).

Volketswil, Hegnau’s own parish, manages 57 spellings in 218 records before 1800. Hegneüwer turns up 51 times, every one between 1660 and 1685: one hand, perhaps one pastor (Volketswil).

Some of it is the pastor’s pen and some is the indexer reading it three centuries later. At Illnau-Effretikon the index has Hegnaucker and Hegnocker, most likely a Hegnauwer misread (§5).

Igis, 1715

Hagenauwer, and why it is the same name

In 1715 Jacob marries at Igis, in Graubünden, the first of the name there, and the pastor writes him Hagenauwer. Nobody in Graubünden had reason to know a hamlet near Uster, but everyone knew Hagenau, the imperial city, and a strange name tends to become a familiar one.

Then the register drifts home: Hagenauwer in 1715–17, Hagenauer in 1724–27, Hegeauer in 1731 and Hegnauer by 1744. His sister Elsbeth drifts the same way. Two siblings moving together in one register is what one name looks like while a pastor learns it (§6).

From 1748 the index copies a mark over the u, Hegnaùer: probably the hook that German hands put on a u to tell it from an n. It did not always work. The same family is indexed Hegnaner as well.

All of them

The long tail

Put every record together and the name comes in 290 spellings. A handful carry nearly everything: the 25 spellings with ten records or more hold 92% of them.

Then comes the tail. 159 spellings turn up exactly once, and 141 of those come from the index of the Swiss church books: one letter, misread in a hand three centuries old.

All 290 are listed below the story, each a door into the archive.