Q for those who know german.

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Cobar
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Q for those who know german.

Post by Cobar »

I've been looking in to my ancestory and finally found where the name was anglicized.

Does anyone know what the meaning of Löser as a surname in german means? The last person I can find was born in Bavaria in 1838 if that matters much.

I get a chuckle of the spelling. I can sort of understand why it was changed in an english speaking country.
Greg
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Re: Q for those who know german.

Post by Greg »

My best studied-German-in-school guess would be something like 'repairman'.

Someone fluent and with knowledge of German culture could probably put that it some kind perspective and maybe give some idiomatic background or something.
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skb12172
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Re: Q for those who know german.

Post by skb12172 »

Snort...reminds me of a former teacher with the last name of Raper. He changed it to Rapier. :lol:
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Cobar
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Re: Q for those who know german.

Post by Cobar »

:lol:

Yeah, The gave stones of John Löser certainly made me laugh.

One of the myriad of "name" sites claims it was a german tenant farmer who paid off his obligation to his feudal lord. Coming from "to redeem", but I am skeptical.

I seems that the area where the Löser fellow settled had some people descendant from some Le Suer, or something....

not being a linguist I can't say that is has nothing to do with french for a cobbler, but, what do I know.

maybe after learning that their surname was loser in english my ancestors took on an anglicized version of the french for shoemaker... I dunno.

EDIT: So my surname is Leasure (nothing to hide, I am a nobody and the Feds have my DNA so whatever.... ) The gravestones for the original immigrants in the Roman Catholic cemetary show the orginal Löser, but all descendants show Leasure. So obviously is was changed.
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Darrell
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Re: Q for those who know german.

Post by Darrell »

Google translate/Wikipedia says it means "solver".

http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... rev=search
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Cobar
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Re: Q for those who know german.

Post by Cobar »

Yeah,

Family lore is something along the line of a banker. It seems that "loser" is short for portugaloser, which was a very large value coin minted. I have a hard time believing that the family name is based off of a coin. I suppose is possible but doubt it.
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Erik
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Re: Q for those who know german.

Post by Erik »

My first guess for "Löser" would be "fixer", as in repairman (or "solver"). I've never heard the word in German before, so that's based on my knowledge of German, and knowing it's similarities to Scandinavian languages.

But googling a bit I found this: http://www.onomastik.com/l%C3%B6ser.php
The alternatives that makes most sense is that Löser is a tradename for a person that works in a bath house. Or that it's a person from the town of Lösau.

Checking the german wikipedia gives more options: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%B6ser
"Löser" is similar to "Goel" in jewish law. It seems to be a person that settles debts.
Löser is also a big coin or medallion.

Oh, and for those of you that doesn't speak German, the character "ö" is a separate character, it's not just "an 'o' with two dots over". The name would be pronounced more like "loeser" in english, the "ö" is pronounced something like "u" in "fur". But since few english speakers would know that, it's understandable that it was anglicized. :)
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Darrell
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Re: Q for those who know german.

Post by Darrell »

Erik wrote: Oh, and for those of you that doesn't speak German, the character "ö" is a separate character, it's not just "an 'o' with two dots over". The name would be pronounced more like "loeser" in english, the "ö" is pronounced something like "u" in "fur". But since few english speakers would know that, it's understandable that it was anglicized. :)
I knew that, and thought of mentioning it. It would not sound like "loser", more like "lurser", wouldn't it?
Eppur si muove--Galileo
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Erik
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Re: Q for those who know german.

Post by Erik »

Yes, but with the middle "r" silent.
Or like the "o" sound in colonel, depends on who says it. :)
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Vonz90
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Re: Q for those who know german.

Post by Vonz90 »

You have to be careful with the translation because in Bavaria in 1838 they most likely would have been speaking one the Bavarian dialects and not standard Hochdeutsch.
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