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Vorsteher
Jän
Jan 23, 2006 14:42
18 yrs ago
4 viewers *
German term

Mag

German to English Social Sciences Names (personal, company) Abbreviations of names
I'm translating some church documents from 1845-48, and there are lists of names included: baptisms, communicants, donors, etc. I have a list of abbreviations of men's names, but can't find anything similar for women's names, and I've got a few.

Mag for example. Is this Margaretha or Magdalena?

If anyone knows of a site, dictionary, anything that would have a list of commonly used abbreviations of *wonen's* names, I would be eternally grateful.

And there is no context, they are just lists. Sometimes lists of signatures, which are even worse.

tia
Proposed translations (English)
3 Magdalena or Magdalene
1 found this in Grimm

Discussion

Rebecca Garber (asker) Jan 23, 2006:
exact context, transscribed from Suetterlin:
Namen der Eltern: Mich. West Mag. Borger
Namen der Eltern: Oeter Klinger An. Mag. g. Holtzstein
Namen der Eltern: David Gerst Frau Mag.
Rebecca Garber (asker) Jan 23, 2006:
They are baptismal lists, of married persons. I think the author assumed that the abbreviations would be clear for all time.
Jonathan MacKerron Jan 23, 2006:
if these are indeed abbreviated names, perhaps the author did not want the real names to be known, so how can you ever be sure??
Jonathan MacKerron Jan 23, 2006:
please provide the exact text as it stands for all three words you're trying to decipher
Rebecca Garber (asker) Jan 23, 2006:
Mag and Magar are followed by periods or colons, indicating abbreviation
Ricki Farn Jan 23, 2006:
Are you sure they are abbreviations? The three you list are alle in here:
http://students.cs.byu.edu/~charlajw/Woodbury/givenNames.dic...
Perhaps people just had weird names back then ;-)

Proposed translations

9 hrs
Selected

Magdalena or Magdalene

based on this source
http://www.gentree.com/databases/Stouffer/Stouffer1.html

Mag- Magdalena

BTW Anna Mag. und Anna Barb. sind häufig vorkommende Abk.formen und in beiden Fällen ist dies eine Abkürzung f. Magdalena.

Kennst du diese Site? http://members.aol.com/hgurski3/lex3.htm

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1 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "This appears to be a possible name for some of the baptised children, but for the adult women, Magaretha appears at other points in the documents, and Magdalena not at all. "
2 hrs

found this in Grimm

for Mag, it says siehe Mage
"MAGE [Lfg. 12,8], m. seitenverwandter, verwandter im allgemeinen. ein altes gemeingermanisches wort: goth. mêgs gambràV, altnord. schwiegervater, schwiegersohn und schwager; alts. mâg, ags. mæg, fries. mêch verwandter; ahd. mhd. mâg, mâc, cognatus, affinis; überall der starken declination folgend, die auch nach der mhd. zeit noch hervortritt: affinis mag, mog, maug, mages"

So it obviously something to do with family relations

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Note added at 2 hrs (2006-01-23 17:23:29 GMT)
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"family relation" perhaps??

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Note added at 2 hrs (2006-01-23 17:24:24 GMT)
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"collateral relation" according to Flügler's 1893 dictionary

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Note added at 2 hrs (2006-01-23 17:25:26 GMT)
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collateral relation is the translation I found for seitenverwandter
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