German names in old German script: Christian

This article is part of the series “Get Familiar With German Given Names In Old German Script” where you will find similar articles about other German names, including name variations and examples out of old documents. In this article we’ll deal with old German script “Christian”.

Some of the name variations are mainly used in certain German regions so it might well be that you’ll never ever see them in your own research. But according to the “better safe than sorry” it’s not one of the worst ideas to list them all, don’t you think? Please have a look at the (incomplete) list below.

Male variations

• Carsten
• Chris, Christen, Christian
• Karsten
• Kris, Kristen, Kristian

Female variations

• Chris, Kris
• Christa, Krista
• Christel
• Christiana, Christiane, Cristiana
• Kristiana, Kristiane
• Christin, Christina, Christine, Cristina
• Kristin, Kristina, Kristine, Krystina, Krystine
• Ina, Stina, Stine, Tina, Tine
• Kerstin, Kirsten, Kyrsten
• Kiki

Interesting name website

For more and international variations of Christian resp. Christine please have a look at “Behind the name“, an incredible name website with more than 200k of names all over the world. Please also pay special attention to the very interesting internal links on the right side of their page:

• Expand Name Links
• See All Relations
• Show Family Tree

Examples of old German script: Christian and Christine

Now let’s have a look at the snippets I collected for you. Of course I don’t have a snippet for each and every possible variation but I’ll add them when I stumble over them.

Here and there you’ll notice that I meddled with the snippets. I erased all leftovers and cutoffs from other words and letters to make it easier for you to spot the single letters.

Above are the first five versions of the name “Christian”,

all from a civil register. I’ll show you step by step how to tackle down one letter after another.

We’ll concentrate on the first two snippets and their easier letters first, step by step. Grab pen and paper and start with an underscore for the capital letter which we’ll be skipping for now because it’s a mean one…

The first eye-catching letter is the second letter, the one with the top loop and the bottom loop. If you have a cheat sheet for Kurrent and Suetterlin you should easily recognize that letter as the letter… “h”. Right. Add the “h” right next to the underscore on your piece of paper.
Add another underscore for the third letter, we’ll work on that later.
The fourth letter should be fairly easy since it’s a diagonal upstroke and a vertical downstroke with one dot above it which is similar to what we’re used today. Write it down.
Letter five is outstanding, literally. One long upstroke, an even longer downstroke (and as connection to the next letter another upstroke). May I introduce you to the (in)famous German “long s”? (That one is always used unless it’s at the end of a syllable or a word, then it’s the “round s”.) Write it down on your piece of paper.
Then there is another letter with a long upstroke and a similar long downstroke, along with a small swirl in the bottom half. Maybe you’ve learned the “t” in a similar way at school. Write it down.
Another letter with a short diagonal upstroke and a short vertical downstroke, topped with a dot… Add it after the “t”.

 

More than halfway done… Grab yourself a tea and relax

Now there are only two letters left, none of them ascending or descending letters. Let’s skip the eighth letter for now (understroke) and have a look at the last letter. Small strokes: up, down, up, down, upstrokes are diagonal, the vertical downstrokes not too close together. Those are the characteristics of an “n”, write that down. Now you should have something like this on your piece of paper: “_ h _ i s t i _ n”.
Now let’s have a closer look at the third letter, the second underscore. Two more or less vertical strokes, closer together than in the “n”, and (more or less) connected at the bottom. That’s characteristical for an “r”, therefore write that down. Now your transcript should look like “_ h r i s t i _ n”
Last underscore stands for a letter with a roundish left part and a downstroke at the right, both connected at the top. The roundish part isn’t easy to recognize because it’s often open on top, not a complete circle. But actually there are only two neither ascending nor descending letters with something roundish, open at the top. One of them is an “o”. The other one looks very similar but has a downstroke to the right of it, and that’s an “a”, so let’s add that: “_ h r i s t i a n”

Heading down the home stretch…

As I said, the first letter can be a mean one. Have a look at the computer font examples in the bottom right snippet. The capital “C” in Kurrent or Suetterlin does resemble our modern script “L”, yikes! Luckily for us the scribes back in those times were flexible and often mixed the formerly used Latin letters with the Kurrent letters. And the Latin “C” very much looks like the “C” we are used to nowadays, give or take a few swirls, curlicues and squiggles. Sooo… add the “C” to your transcript, lean back and admire your “C h r i s t i a n”

Now have a look at snippets three, four and five and apply the above method to those scribbles as well. See how the scribe gets lazy and simply connects the dot on the first “i” with the next letter so we can’t see an actual dot? Mean, eh?

Let’s have a look at “Christine” and “Christina”

Now compare the male name “Christian” to the female versions of “Christina” resp. “Christine”.

• As you probably can tell the first two snippets were written by the same clerk. Again there are both Latin and Kurrent letters mixed in both names. Both examples even have the same letters, just the first ends with “-ian” while the second ends with “-ina”.
• The other three snippets all show the female version “Christina” (# 3, all in Kurrent letters) resp. “Christine” (# 4, all in Latin letters, and # 5, all in Kurrent letters except for the “C”).

Try to use the above mentioned method to identify each of the letters.  Don’t worry if you’re uncertain because it will get easier with time. And you have the advantage of actually knowing in advance what it is supposed to be.

More snippets with other variations are on their way, please check back now and then for new additions. Come time, come snippets…

Some of the letters are fairly easy to recognize if you’ve seen them often enough, aren’t they? Alas, some writers didn’t stick to the rules so to say, even though there actually weren’t really official, fixed rules back then. Even today, some people create their own versions of letters, don’t they? But be honest, do all of your own letters always look the same?