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the origin of "Guggenmos"

the origin of "Guggenmos"

Ralf Guggenmos (View posts)
Posted: 16 Jul 2002 6:24PM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Guggenmos
Mr. Dr. Georg Guggenmos has found, that the origin of this name is the Bavaria region "Allgäu". There was built a small village of the Celts in the 11.th century, called GUGGEMOSEN. There lived Jakob Gugkenmos at 1535 p.Ch.n. and Wolf Gugginmueß, who run a sawmill, and a Baker called Cuccumos. If you are interested in more, send me an email. Greetings from the Guggenmos Family

Re: the origin of "Guggenmos"

Eva Guggemos (View posts)
Posted: 1 Jul 2004 5:38PM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Guggenmos; Guggemos
Actually this isn't quite right--

The information from the last poster is evidently from Georg Guggemos' book "Die grosse Allgaeuer Sippe der Guggemos." My mother is the one who translated this book from German into English in the 1970's, and I formerly had the whole text posted online (I have since let the URL lapse). The German text is at http://home.allgaeu.org/aguggem/ahnenf.htm.

The surname "Guggemos" first appeared in the late 14th century; it was probably originally pronounced "Guggimos". The variant spelling Guggenmos first appeared in 1536. (Incidentally, Dr. Georg's name was Guggemos, not Guggenmos.)

The meaning of the name is not known for certain, but "mos" (pronounced "m-oh-s") definitely means "moos", or in English, marsh. Dr. Guggemos believed that "Gugge-" may have descended from a forbear named Gugo and that the original name was "Gugo am Moos", or loosely translated, Gugo in the Marsh. However, my mother, who has an advanced degree in German and is familiar with medieval linguistics, believes it is more likely that the original prefix was "Guggi-", which degraded during a vowel shift to "Gugge-". Under this interpretation, the name Guggemos originally meant "turtle marsh," from the local word "guggi" for a type of turtle.

There are some interesting historical facts surrounding the name. The hamlet of Guggemos, which is most likely the original home of the Guggemos family (and not the similar-sounding "Guggemosen" nearby-- which is a later settlement), is located at the foot of the Alps on the border with Switzerland, near the fairy tale castles of Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Even now the entire area, which gets runoff from the Alps, is very marshy, with many small lakes and streams. The Guggemos ancestors are known to have been free peasants and artisans, rather than serfs. They may well have earned this status through draining the marsh where they lived. In this time period, local lords were looking for more arable land, and sometimes granted freedom to serfs who were willing to do the hard labor of moving from traditional farmland to "virgin" land, like forests and swamps, which they would have to reclaim themselves.

I may put the entire site back up soon, but until then the best source for more information is Alfred Guggemos' site, in German, at http://home.allgaeu.org/aguggem/ahnenf.htm.

Re: the origin of "Guggenmos"

Ralf Guggenmos (View posts)
Posted: 4 Jul 2004 5:50PM GMT
Classification: Query
Hi Eva, Thank you! Your message is very interesting and I suppose, your mother is right. - My Dad was born in the Allgäu-Region; there are still Guggenmos and Guggemos living also at the shore of Lake of Constance, near Switzerland and Austria, as we do. It's funny: When I was a boy, my nickname was Guggi. Greetings form "Old Europe".... Ralf

Re: the origin of "Guggenmos"

Ralf Guggenmos (View posts)
Posted: 4 May 2005 2:00PM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Guggenmos
Hallo Eva, thank you - it was really interesting to hear what your mother found out. But there is still an opinion, that the origin of "Guggemos" or Guggenmos" has nothing to do with "turtle". May be or not. Who knows. Greetings from the foot of the Alps, Ralf Guggenmos

Re: the origin of "Guggenmos"

Marylea Guggenmos Osier (View posts)
Posted: 25 Apr 2006 7:41PM GMT
Classification: Query
Your information was interesting. I assume you are using volume 2 of Dr G. GUGGEMOS (no "N"). I have my information starting in Abt. 1470 with the birth of Hans Guggemos to Conrad & Margaret G...

I have several thousand of our part of the family, but no Ralf. How are we related?

My great grandfather was Benedict Guggemos, listed in Volume 2, pg. 134--but most of the other info. on his family in not accurate. I have most of Benedict's descendants up-to-date. The family started in Nebraska. We live in Minnesota. We try to have family reunions every 3 years, usually in Nebraska.

I hope to hear from you--although your message is 4 years old.

Re: the origin of "Guggenmos"

Posted: 14 Feb 2007 9:03AM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Guggenmos
Hy Marylea, I suppose, all the Guggenmos and Guggemos are related. I got my informations from Dr. Georg Guggenmos in Füssen, Bavaria (Germany) and my father Ludwig, whose native village was Haldenwang in the Allgäu. Where are your ancestors from, especially your great grandfather Benedict? Greetings from Europe to America, from Guggenmos to Guggenmos! Ralf

Re: the origin of "Guggenmos"

Posted: 10 Oct 2008 11:24AM GMT
Classification: Query
thank you all for your info on my last name.I beleive that our last name is of such rare origin that we are indeed family.I also was taught to pronounce it guggemis,I dont though I know that we as in this side come from large familys my father(rodney)is the oldest of 6 my grandpa(eldon)is the oldest of (I think 8) there are many branches in our tree I can say that so far I can tell the guggenmos as whole are hard working and always master their trades

Re: the origin of "Guggenmos"

Posted: 3 Apr 2009 3:06PM GMT
Classification: Query
This is Gary Guggenmos, son of Steven ray Guggenmos and I was just curious about our family origins....thank u so much.

Re: the origin of "Guggenmos"

Posted: 12 Dec 2012 6:34PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 12 Dec 2012 8:43PM GMT
Surnames: Guggemos, Guggenmos
It's been almost 10 years since I wrote the post above and I just wanted to make a few corrections and clarifications:

1. The earliest hamlet is now spelled Guggemoos on maps, not Guggemos. You can see it on Google Maps here: http://goo.gl/maps/nJtvV

2. I erroneously said that the hamlet was near the border with Switzerland; this is wrong. It's near Austria.

3. I have more to say about the meaning of the first part of the name, "Guggi". In Dr. Guggemos' history (see http://home.allgaeu.org/aguggem/ahnenf.htm ), he told a story in which, sometime around the 11th century, an Alemmanic tribesman named Gugo settled on the edge of a marsh. Dr. Guggemos believed that this man's land became named after him as "Gugo-am-Moos," and that all Guggemoses therefore descend from this progenitor. In the words of Dr. Guggemos:

Als Träger des Namers habe ich lange und viel darüber nachgedacht und auch eine Lösung gefunden, die ich als die allein richtige ansehe. Zu Beginn der 2. großen Rodungszeit, also wohl im 11. Jahrh. kam ein Alemanne mit dem Namen Gugo oder Gogo auf der Suche nach einer günstigen Niederlassungsmöglichkeit mit seiner Famile in die Gegend, wo heute der Ort Guggemos liegt. Es gefiel ihm dort auf dem hochgelegenen Platz mit der schönen Fernsicht und der Sonnenbestrahlung während des ganzen Tages. Er errichtete sich hier am Rande eines sicher nicht sehr aus gedehnten Mooses ein Haus für seine Familie und begann den Wald zu roden zur Gewinnung von Siedlungsland für einen landwirtschaftlichen Betrieb. Die in der Umgebung bereits lebenden Alemannen nannten ihn den Gugo am Moos, Woraus mit der Zeit Guggemos wurde. Der Siedlung, die er geschaffen hatte, gaben sie den Namen Guggemos, benannten sie also nach dem Siedler und der Lage seiner Siedlung. Der Namen Gugo scheint unter den Alemannen in unserer Gegend verhältnismäßg selten gewesen sein. Er ist die Kurzform eines ahd. FN, etwa Guggenhart, Gugginhart, Guggenbert oä.

This interpretation is based on fairly slender evidence, though. He bases his argument on the fact that "Guggemos" is a place name that only arose once, and so he argues, it was more likely to have come from a personal name rather than from a feature of the local landscape. I do not think there is any surviving evidence of a "Gugo" having existed, though -- his existence in the 11th century is speculative. Dr. Guggemos also admits that the name "Gugo" was not a common one.

The earliest linguistic evidence that Dr. Guggemos turned up points to two early spellings of the name in the 1300s: Guggimos and Guggemos. Guggemos is the one that has propogated most widely today, with Guggenmos probably being a variant that stemmed from this name slightly later. The earliest recording of the name as "Guggemos" was made by a clerk in Augsburg in 1366, regarding an inhabitant of the town of Mittelberg. The form of the name "Guggemos" might point to an original meaning of the name as "Cuckoo-Marsh" (after the local pronunciation of the word for cuckoo) or "Berry-Marsh" (after a local word for a certain type of berry), or perhaps "Gugo's Marsh", as Dr. Guggemos believed. This interpretation would assume that the earlier pronunciation of the name Guggemos was either Gugo-mos, Gugu-mos or Kuku-mos; the unaccented "o" or "u"syllable would have softened to an "e" during the vowel shifts that occured as Old/Middle High German evolved into Modern High German.

The earliest recording of the name as "Guggimos" was 6 years later than the recording of "Guggemos." Dr. Guggemos thought that "Guggimos" was just an arbitrary spelling error by a clerk, but my mother (who is a professional translator with an advanced degree in German) disagrees. The 1372 recording of "Guggimos" came from the sale of a farm by a "Benz Guggimos," on the site of the current hamlet of Guggemoos. This recording therefore came from a farmer who lived on the original plot of land from which all other forms of the name descended. We might reasonably assume that a farmer from the original family plot would have supplied a pronunciation that was more archaic than one supplied by a town-dweller some distance away. The vowel shift from Old/Middle High German to Modern German, which is mentioned above, occured in towns first. Town-dwellers like those in Augsburg would have stopped pronouncing the "i" first, while people in outlying farms would have kept pronouncing it for while longer. Even though it was recorded slightly later than the first spelling as "Guggemos", the 1372 document therefore may be recording the earlier pronunciation, coming from before the vowel shift occurred.

If "Guggimos" is the more archaic form, then it is unlikely that the original meaning of the name was Cucko-Marsh, Berry-Marsh or Gugo's Marsh. This is because vowels did not shift from o/u to i. They instead softened from o/u/i to e (See "An Introduction to the Historical Study of New High German," http://tiny.cc/qf07ow ). If we accept that "Guggi" is the older form, then we can refer to what Dr. Guggemos said about its meaning: "Einige weitere Namensforscher leiten das BW Guggi von der kleinen, vor allem in Hochmooren hausenden Sumpfkröte Guggi her, die einen kuckuckartigen Ruf ausstößt, dem sie ihren Namen verdankt." Thus a "small marsh toad," locally called a "Guggi" after the cuckoo-like call that it gives, might be what gave our family name its stem.

I think one can understand why we would be more attracted towards a meaning of our family name as "Alemmanic Tribesman Gugo's Marsh", rather than "Small Toad Marsh", but the latter appears to be the more likely meaning, in my opinion. I would emphasize, though, that no one can give a definitive answer to the question of what the name means. The evidence is based on just a few scattered recordings of the name in the late 1300s, which may not record accurately how people spoke at the time, or what the name meant before then.

Re: the origin of "Guggenmos"

Posted: 10 Apr 2013 4:28AM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Guggemos, Guckemus
I don't suppose you would know if the last name "Guggemos" could have been translated to "Guckemus" at some point. I know that my Husband's 2nd great grandfather Phillipp Ludwig Guckemus came over in 1867 from Dudenhofen, Offenbach, Stakenburg, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany and settled at Utica, New York. However, I'm having a difficult time finding much if anything.
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