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Hello Charles and Keith,


This question caught my attention because I have not yet seen these types of names.


This practice does seem to relate to place names. There is a website for the Masselink family that mentions "The Masselink surname was spelled various ways over the centuries In German, it was spelled Grote Masseling, Kleine Masseling, and Masseling. In Dutch, it was spelled Groote Masselink, Masselink and Masslink."
 http://masselinkgenealogy.weebly.com/who-what-where-is-a-masselink.html


On looking at the website, the author mentions that people were often namd by the farm where they worked and that the farms could have been divided 3/4 going to the eldest and 1/4 going to the younger child, then the farm was renamed as große or klein added at the beginning.


So, I don't think there is a particular term (not a prefix) for große or klein, and also these are not compound names denoting the merging of 2 families. We would establish these according to the author's preferences as shown in usage, so "Gr. Pöhler" would be correct.


I would be interested in hearing what the German professor of cataloguing says about this topic.


Thanks, Karen


Concordia University

Montreal, Quebec

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________________________________
From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Charles Croissant <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: January 7, 2020 5:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] German surnames containing a lower-case große or klein

Dear Keith,

I think you would be safe in setting up your person as

Grosse Darrelmann, Carolina

(there are a number of authority records in the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek formulated in that way for other instances of Grosse Darrelmann) -- but I can also consult a friend of mine in Germany who is a retired professor of cataloging, to see if he can throw any light on this usage. I'll let you know what I find out.

Regards,
Charles Croissant
________________________________
From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Keith E Knop <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 7, 2020 11:13 AM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [External] [PCCLIST] German surnames containing a lower-case große or klein


Dear CW,



I’m currently sitting on a NAR for Carolina große Darrelmann and I’m waffling on what to do with the…particle?...whatever it is. The situation is not covered in the IFLA Names of Persons documentation, nor did I see it addressed in the Duden Familiennamen or other name reference works, though my German is not sufficiently robust to allow effortless browsing. It doesn’t help that I don’t know what to call these things and these are both also incredibly common words.



Based on similar examples in the DNB authority file and application of RDA A.2, I currently have:



AAP: Grosse Darrelmann, Carolina

VAP: Darrelmann, Carolina grosse



A complicating factor is that usage for this and similar surnames (große Darrelmann, kleine Kruse, große Pöhler) seems to vary greatly, with some people capitalizing the initial whatever-it-is (that is, distinct from cases where it has clearly been helpfully “corrected” by some third party), some people hyphenating (e.g., Große-Kruse), and some abbreviating (e.g., gr. Pöhler).



The closest I have come to concrete information is a hint somewhere that this practice might have something to do with place names, which seems at least plausible. Darrel is apparently part of Essen in Lower Saxony, and the most helpful thing I’ve found so far is a list of names posted to an Oldenburg genealogy mailing list in 1997; I have the possibly false impression the practice is mostly found in names from that general region. In looking for examples I also ran across the resplendently comprehensive Johann Gerd kleine Darrelmann genannt große Darrelmann (who for good measure married Anna Maria Elisabeth große Arkenau in 1853), at which point I gave up.



Ultimately I suppose it’s really not that important which form gets the AAP, but for future reference and my own satisfaction, does anyone know if a) there is a name for these adjectival whatevers and b) if there is any formal guidance as to how they should file?



Thanks,



Keith Knop

Head, Music Cataloging

Main Library, University of Georgia

(706) 542-1554 | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>