Alternative Surname?

Hello Barry,

I think, the alternatives do not depend on beeing Sorbian or not: sometimes these alternative names have been used, if a person was born before the marriage of his/her parents. But in this case it was not usual to continue this naming for more than one generation.

Other possibilities:
1. a long time ago there might have been a person whose mother took a new marriage after the dead of his father. If the relationship between the child and the new husband of the mother has been very good - or if the husband was very honorable - the child might have taken both surnames: of his own father and of the new husband of his mother.

2. the mother has been of a (relativly) famous or mighty familiy and took a husband of a less famous family. Then the sense of this doubled surname (in German language most times noticed als "anders genannt" or "alias") may have been used as a symbol for belonging to a famous family.

One example for the last: I know about a Family "Gundelach anders genannt Becker". The Gundelachs have been famous and mighty with their making glass (and with beeing leaders of a glassmakers-association during the 16. century). "Becker" has been nearly a no-name - and so the combination "Gundelach anders genannt Becker" or "Gundelach alias Becker" or "Gundelach-Becker" took part.

Most times these combinations are very old, which makes it hard to learn anything abourt their orign.

Greetings from Hannover

Giacomo

To add one possibility more which has been in use until the end of the 19th century:

Sometimes families named themself after a house, an village or an aerea, which belonged to them and took this name as their first or second surename. If the house, village or aerea got its name from a familiy which had possessed it before, both of the names have been surenames.

Greetings again!