WHAT THE KRAMER NAME
MEANS
How the Old and
Distinguished KRAMER
Family God Its Name And What
The
Kramer Name Means
The surname Kramer appears to be occupational in origin. Our research indicates that it can be associated with the Germans and Dutch, meaning, “one who traveled through the country making and selling cloth which he carried to the market in a cram or pack on his back.” Although this interpretation is the result of onomastic research, I found it also meant: “One who traveled through the country buying butter, eggs and hens which he carried to the market in a cram or pack on his back.” Many surnames have ore than one origin.
When I started to do more extensive research on the Kramer name I found it real difficult finding it with the exact spelling, which we use today. It, in fact, may very well have been spelled differently hundreds of years ago, do you know of anyone who might have changed their name, the more research I do, the more likely I will find several different spelling, Language changes, carelessness and a high degree of illiteracy (sometimes the man himself did not know how to spell his own name) compounded the number of ways a name might have been spelled. Often the town clerk spelled the name the way it sounded to him.
Knowing that different spellings of the same original surname are common occurrence, it is not surprising that dictionaries of surnames indicate probably spelling variations of the Kramer surname to be Kramer, Kraemer, Kreamer, Krammer, Kremerman, Cramer, and Crammer,. Although bearers of the old and distinguished Kramer name comprise a small percentage of individuals living in the world today, there still might be a large number of our direct relatives who are using one the Kramer name variations.
Although our last name offers us the most substantial clues to our family history, first and middle names can also be valuable in tracing our family tree. We generally think of names whit three parts: first, middle and last. First names are called “given” or “Christian” name’s because early Christians changed their pagan first names to Christian names at baptism.
During the early Middle ages, people were referred to by a single given name. But gradually the custom of adding another name as a way to distinguish individuals gained popularity. Certain distinct traits became commonly used as a part of this practice. For instance, the place of birth: St. Francis of Assisi; a descriptive characteristic:
Lambert Le Tort, an Old French poet whose name means: “Lambert the Twisted,” the person’s occupation: Piers, Plowman; or the use of the father’s name: Leif Ericsson.
By the 12th century, the use of a second name had become so widespread that, in some places, it was considered vulgar not to have one. However, even though this custom was the source of all surnames used today, the second names used in the early Middle ages did not apply to families, nor were they hereditary. Many fixed surnames existed alongside the more temporary by names and descriptive terms used by the people as second names.
The modern hereditary use of surnames is a practice that originated among the Venetian aristocracy in Italy about the 10th or 11th centuries. Crusaders returning from the Holy Land took note of this custom and soon spread its use throughout Europe, France, the British Isles, and then Germany began applying the practice as the need to distinguish individuals became more important.
By the 1370s the word “surname” was found in documents, and had come to acquire some emotive and dynastic significance. Men sometimes sought to keep their surname alive by encouraging a collateral to adopt it when they had not direct descendants of their own in the male line.
Although we can see that the handing on of a surname has become a matter of pride, we can only guess as to the reasons for adopting hereditary surnames in the first place. Government became more and more a matter of written record. As the activities of government, particularly in the levying of taxation and the exaction of military service, touched an ever-widening range of the population, perhaps it became necessary to identify individuals accurately. In some of the larger urban communities especially, personal names were no longer sufficient to distinguish people for social as well as administrative purposes. In the countryside, manorial administration, with its stress on hereditary succession to land, needed some means of keeping track of families and not just of individuals. We can be certain that by about 1450 at the latest, most people of whatever social rank had a fixed, hereditary surname. This surname identified the family, provided a link with the family’s past, and would preserve its identity in the future. It is not surprising that the preservation of surnames became a matter of family pride.
It was a cause for much regret if a man had no male descendants to whom he could pass on the surname he himself had inherited and had borne with pride. Beginning in the 15th and 16th centuries, family names gained in popularity in Poland and Russia, the Scandinavian countries, bound by their custom of using the father’s name as a second name, didn’t begin using family surnames until the 19th century, Turkey waited until 1933, when the government forced the practice on its people.
In nearly every case, surnames were first used by the nobility and wealthy landowners, and the practice then trickled down to the merchants and commoners. The first permanent were those of barons and landowners who derived their names from their manors and feudalisms. These names became fixed through the hereditary nature of their lands. For the members of the nobility were imitated, leading to the widespread use of surnames.
It would be a difficult task to work out a simple classification of family names due to spelling and pronunciation changes over the years. Many old words had different meanings, or are now obsolete. Many family names were dependent on the competency and discretion of the writer. The same name can sometimes be spelled in different ways even in the same document.
Family names have come down to us in various ways. They may have grown out of a person’s surroundings or job, or the name of an ancestor. Most surnames evolved from four general sources:
Occupation
Location
Patronymic (Father’s name)
Characteristic
Many historians believe that surnames derived from places (locational) were the first to become hereditary. Surnames evolving from nicknames or descriptive traits (characteristic) are also of early origin. Surnames taken from occupations came later and those pf patronymic origin were the last to become hereditary. Even though patronymic names have been in use a long time, they would change with every generation: William’s son John would be known as John Williamson, while his son William would be William Johnson.
While there is a wealth of first names available, the actual selection process has been somewhat limited. It is necessary to remember that in 1545 the Catholic Church made the use of Saint’s names mandatory for baptism, so for centuries first names have been confined to the John-and-Mary tradition. In fact, in all western countries during the Middle ages, there were only about twenty common names for infant boys and girls. And John and Mary were most associated with Catholicism, so in came names from the Old Testament, such as Elijah, Priscilla and Joshua.
Middle names weren’t’ used until the 15th century when a second “first” name was used as a status symbol by German Nobility: Many years passed before this practice came widespread, and in the United States, it did not become popular until after the Revolutionary warm when the fashion was to use the mother’s maiden name.
I have come across some of our ancestor’s names with what appears to be a title. For example, “Senior” and “Junior” placed immediately following a name did not necessarily imply a father and son relationship. They could have been an uncle and nephew who had the same name and lived near each other. The term cousin was widely used to mean “an extended family” not legally just the child of an aunt or uncle.
END