# Etymology of the name "Schwarzenegger"



## Todd The Bod

This could be a touchy question, but does anyone know the etymology of the cognomen "Schwarzeneggar"?


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## berndf

_Schwarzenegg*e*r_, not  _Schwarzenegg*a*r_.

 Morphological analysis is _Schwarz-en-egg-er_. _Egg _is an  Upper-German (i.e. Southern) variant of _Ecke_ = corner, cognate to English _edge_. Here it carries an older meaning: a mountain-peak, -edge or -slope. An _Egger_ is someone who lives there. _Schwarz_ means black, _schwarzen_ is an accusative or dative form, though the inflected form might be just _schwarze_ in which case _-n-_ is a kind of "glue" letter without meaning; both analyses are possible, you can't tell and it doesn't matter.

Hence, a _Schwarzenegger_ is someone who lives on a black mountain-peak, -edge or -slope.


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## paradoxa4

*Moderator note: This was a separate question asked in the German forum. The two threads have been merged.*

With all respect this forum deserves.

Doesn't "Schwarzenegger" mean NIGGER-NIGGER? In other words, the most niggah among the niggahs?

It's like if someone would call his son "Negropreto" (Negro = Spanish / Preto = Portuguese, but it's the same word BLACK)

Am I right with what I said?


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## Todd The Bod

berndf said:


> _Schwarzenegg*e*r_, not  _Schwarzenegg*a*r_.
> 
> Morphological analysis is _Schwarz-en-egg-er_. _Egg _is an  Upper-German (i.e. Southern) variant of _Ecke_ = corner, cognate to English _edge_. Here it carries an older meaning: a mountain-peak, -edge or -slope. An _Egger_ is someone who lives there. _Schwarz_ means black, _schwarzen_ is an accusative or dative form, though the inflected form might be just _schwarze_ in which case _-n-_ is a kind of "glue" letter without meaning; both analyses are possible, you can't tell and it doesn't matter.
> 
> Hence, a _Schwarzenegger_ is someone who lives on a black mountain-peak, -edge or -slope.



Thank you kindly for your thorough response, Berndf.  I feel pretty silly to even have, but I'd sometimes wonder about how the surname came about when I'd hear his name mentioned on TV or in film.  I wonder if I'm the only one.  Oh well.  Thank you again, Berndf.


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## Brioche

paradoxa4 said:


> With all respect this forum deserves.
> 
> Doesn't "Schwarzenegger" mean NIGGER-NIGGER? In other words, the most niggah among the niggahs?
> 
> It's like if someone would call his son "Negropreto" (Negro = Spanish / Preto = Portuguese, but it's the same word BLACK)
> 
> Am I right with what I said?



No, it does not.

Schwarz does mean black, but the name has nothing to do with Neger.

According to Wikipedia:
*Schwarzenegger* is a German surname that means person from _Schwarzenegg_, which is both a town in Switzerland and a place in Land Salzburg in Austria. The name also translates literally to "black ploughman" in German.


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## Frank78

"-egger" might derive from "Acker" (field). So he's the "black ploughman"


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## Gernot Back

paradoxa4 said:


> Doesn't "Schwarzenegger" mean NIGGER-NIGGER?



No, it simply means that one of the ancestors of that family might have lived in or around Schwarzenegg in Styria/Austria. (_-egg_ is most likely simply a different spelling for _Eck[e] _- corner)
http://www.burgen-austria.com/Archiv.asp?Artikel=Schwarzenegg


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## paradoxa4

Oh, thank you so much, it really helped me.


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## berndf

Todd The Bod said:


> Thank you kindly for your thorough  response, Berndf.  I feel pretty silly to even have, but I'd sometimes  wonder about how the surname came about when I'd hear his name mentioned  on TV or in film.  I wonder if I'm the only one.  Oh well.  Thank you  again, Berndf.


No need to apologize. Answering etymological questions is what we do over here.


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## Hutschi

Note that it is spoken in German:
Schwarzen - egger, there is a glotal stop between the words.


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## berndf

Brioche said:


> The name also translates literally to "black ploughman" in German.





Frank78 said:


> "-egger" might derive from "Acker" (field). So he's the "black ploughman"


This etymology is true for names of Northern German descent containing_ -egger_. Here this is not the case.

PS: And, Frank, it wouldn't have been derived from _Acker _but from the agricultural tool _Egge=harrow_.


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## berndf

Gernot Back said:


> No, it simply means that one of the ancestors of that family might have lived in or around Schwarzenegg in Styria/Austria.


I agree that the castle or the estate belonging to it is a very likely candidate for origin of this particular Styrian family name but since names of dwelling places ending in _-egg_ and corresponding family names are very frequent in the region, this cannot be taken for granted.


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## Hutschi

Hi,
what can we do in such cases where several possibilities are given?

We can look how family names were created.

In our case we have three possible variants as stated in different messages.

1. Schwarzenegg -> the person from Schwarzenegg
2. profession - someone using an egg would declare "egger", "Schwarzen" remains unclear. The Egge is a kind of plough. We would have ... ploughsman
"Schwarzen" is unclear, it can be the color, but it can also be a name of a special ground (Schwarzerde?) But this is speculation. "Egger" from "Acker" would not make sense.
3. "nigger" is not possible because of German word building rules. It would not explain the glotal stop in German.

How can we decide whether 1) or 2) are correct?

There is much evidence for 1:

1. The name corresponds to "Schwarzenegg". It follows common name building rules. 2. Schwarzenegg is not big. So we can suppose the name is seldom. 
3. The name has some places where it is concentrated.

Why doesn't it seem a profession?
Names were often derived from professions. But the profession must exist.
"Egger" would be a profession if there were a high degree of division of labour. But it is a part time job in the year to use the egge, and every farmer did it.
Common profession names were Bauer, Müller, Meier, Lehmann and some others of this kind. And they are not seldom. This is a strong evidence against the "profession" hypothesis.

The name "Egger"is not seldom and it has connection to similar names.
You can see the distribution:
http://christoph.stoepel.net/geogen/v3/Default.aspx
Enter the name there and you can get the properties.

If you enter "Egger" and goto "Namensfamilie" you can see similar names. So it can be a profession name or a place name related to "Acker" or "Egge".

But we cannot explain the "Schwarzen"-part here.

I vote for "the one from Schwarzenegg".

This cheats a little bit about etymology, because it does not explain the "Schwarzen" part, but I suppose it is 
"The edge of Schwarz" and Schwarz is the name of the founder or of the place owner in earlier times, or it is the name of a river or of the place.

Here http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schloss_Schwarzenegg they say there was a "Schwarzhof" as source for the place.

If you look here: http://www.verwandt.at/karten/detail/schwarzenegger.html
you can see "Schwarzenegger" distribution in Austria. It does not give a hint for "profession etymology".


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## berndf

Hutschi said:


> I vote for "the one from Schwarzenegg".


There is little room for doubt about that. Dwelling place names _XXX-egg _and the corresponding family name _Egger _or _XXX-egger_ is very common in Austria and Switzerland and its meaning is quite clear.


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## powertrain900

On an interveiw on the David Letterman show around '84, Arnold Schwarzenegger said that his name means "black farmer". If Schwarz or schwarzen means black and egger means farmer, land, or some place of agriculture, then that makes sense.


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## Gernot Back

powertrain900 said:


> On an interveiw on the David Letterman show around '84, Arnold Schwarzenegger said that his name means "black farmer". If Schwarz or schwarzen means black and egger means farmer, land, or some place of agriculture, then that makes sense.


_Egger _does definitely not mean _farmer _in general, maybe it means a very specific kind of profession in the realm of agriculture: someone who uses a harrow.



Hutschi said:


> 2. profession - someone using an egg would  declare "egger", "Schwarzen" remains unclear. The Egge is a kind of  plough. We would have ... ploughsman



I doubt _Schwarzenegger_ denotes a dark-skinned person;  rather, I would assume, it denotes someone who used to work with a  harrow which happened to be black.
I suppose Arnold Schwarzenegger is not the only one who has folk-etymologically wrong ideas about his family name.


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## berndf

Gernot Back said:


> I would assume, it denotes someone who used to work with  harrow which happened to be black.


No, not for an Upper German name. There are simply too many place names and obviously corresponding family names (_Honegger, Heidegger, Scheidegger, Bernegger, Schwarzenegger, ..._) to leave much space for doubt. See #2.


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## killerbee256

Could the "Schwarz" part refer to black soil? The darker the soil color the more fertile it is.


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## berndf

Possible. I wouldn't know how to tell, if you don't know the _Schwarzenegg _(this place name appears several times in the Alpine region) that gave his family their name. It could also be dark because because it is North-facing slope that is always in the shade or because it once had a dense, dark forest.


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## Hutschi

berndf said:


> ... or because it once had a dense, dark forest.


Here http://www.ogs-seebach.ch/p/infoseld.php?id=5682&src=srchresx2.php&suche=Schwarzenegg they derive it (the "schwarz" part) from dark forest.





> Bergvorsprung mit dunklem Waldbestand.


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## killerbee256

Makes sense to me, Germanic languages historically have referred to forests in central Europe as “dark” Myrkviðr, mirkiwidu etc.


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## rogermue

The question put forward is not normal etymology but a special field, the sources of family names.
There are a lot of scientific studies in this field and there also are dictionaries for family names.
The same is true for place names.


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## bearded

Hutschi said:


> Schwarzen - egger, there is a glotal stop between the words.


And what would the correct syllable separation be, Schwar/zen/eg/ger or Schwar/ze/neg/ger? Heid/eg/ger or Hei/deg/ger?
Thank you in advance.


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## berndf

e-gger. The gemination is not pronounced (in standard German). The only refelex of the historical gemination is that no lengthening of the preceding vowel occurs.


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## bearded

Actually, I meant syllable separation in writing. Does the glottal stop - as mentioned by Hutschi - influence the written syllable separation
Schwarzen/egger or Schwarze/negger?


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## berndf

I have no idea. That is a purely orthographical question and one you are not confronted with very often and those things don't interest me much. Sorry.


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## JClaudeK

bearded said:


> Does the glottal stop - as mentioned by Hutschi - influence the written syllable separation


I think so. 
Schwarzen-egger


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## Delvo

powertrain900 said:


> On an interveiw on the David Letterman show around '84, Arnold Schwarzenegger said that his name means "black farmer".


I saw him specify "plowman" on the Arsenio Hall show in the early 1990s.


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## eamp

It's definitely from a geographical name in -_egg/eck_, those are extremely common in the Upper German area. Many old castles and some mountains have names in -_egg/eck _where it must have meant something like "peak". Though I think in some names it might also have the more modern meaning "corner, nook" for a piece of land (easily) accessible only from one side. 
Besides _Schwarzenegg _there is also _Finsteregg _(_finster _= "dark") and their antonyms _Weißenegg _("white") and _Lichtenegg _("light") as place-names, with the last two also having matching family names.
Other family names derived in the same way from adjectives are for example _Kaltenegger _("cold"), _Braunegger _("brown"), _Schönegger _("beautiful"), _Flachenegger ("flat"), Vorderegger _("fore, near"), _Hinteregger _("behind, far"), _Mitteregger _("middle"), _Hohen-/Hochen-/Hoch-/Honegger_ ("high"), _Niederegger _("low"), _Oberegger _("upper"), _Unteregger _("lower"), _Sonderegger _(prob. "south"), _Rauchenecker _("rough").


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## berndf

Delvo said:


> I saw him specify "plowman" on the Arsenio Hall show in the early 1990s.


Yes, I know. He said the same thing ("black plowman") in an interview with Letterman in 1987. Etymology is obviously not his point of expertise.


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## Penyafort

To me, the explanation about this coming from a placename is crystal-clear, as it's one of the most common origins in surnames. Just as if there was a town in English called Swarthedge, the demonym being Swarthedger having turned into a surname.


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## Milagros5472

paradoxa4 said:


> *Moderator note: This was a separate question asked in the German forum. The two threads have been merged.*
> 
> With all respect this forum deserves.
> 
> Doesn't "Schwarzenegger" mean NIGGER-NIGGER? In other words, the most niggah among the niggahs?
> 
> It's like if someone would call his son "Negropreto" (Negro = Spanish / Preto = Portuguese, but it's the same word BLACK)
> 
> Am I right with what I said?



6/9/20  For one, the "*n*" word is a word developed by English speaking people during the Atlantic Slave Trade. It is NOT of German origin.   Second, even using the variation of the "*n*" word - as you write it, "niggah" (I'm very uncomfortable even typing it!) - & the phrase "the most niggah of niggah" is *extremely racist & offensive* to all English-speaking people of African ancestry when used by those who are *NOT* of African ancestry. This variation originated as Rap/Hip Hop slang & became in use among CLOSE male friends of African-American ancestry in the 80s. Third, the German word for the color black is "schwarz," not "egger," as everyone here has pointed out.  Peace to you.


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## Milagros5472

6/9/2020  🤔Arnold's surname has puzzled me since the 1980s! 😂   Im hoping for a quick answer, so, I will ask a very dumb question here because Ive sure never gotten any logical answers on the net since the 90s. Although Im about half Swiss (Reuttimann  - no, that's NOT a typo!😂)  & half Hispanic (Milagros) &  Im fluent in Spanish & 50% Italian ... Ive never been able to truly grasp all the  intricacies of German - let alone Swiss German. 😮 My question is this:  Is the spelling & even the combo of "schwarzenegger" even grammatically correct in standard German? My guess is that his family's surname got corrupted after several generations. Am I even close in my theory, or way off?  Danke for any responses.


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## Milagros5472

berndf said:


> Yes, I know. He said the same thing ("black plowman") in an interview with Letterman in 1987. Etymology is obviously not his point of expertise.





Delvo said:


> I saw him specify "plowman" on the Arsenio Hall show in the early 1990s.



6/9/2020 I saw both episodes, too, but very fuzzy memory now! I clearly remember when he mentioned his surname 20 years later on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. From my recollection, Jay asked Arnold just what does his last name mean & Arnold replied that it means "black plowman," even though his name doesnt end with the word "mann," which I assume is proper German grammar.


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## pollohispanizado

I imagine, just like in English, not all professional people are called "[occupation]+mann". According to my tiny German dictionary, a (black)smith is _ein Schmied_ and a cook is _ein Koch_. (As mentioned above, _eine Egge_ is a harrow, so_ ein Egger_ would be a "harrower", though most people who have commented have discarded the possibility of this being the meaning of the name.)


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## ahvalj

With 66 000 views this is apparently the most topical thread on the Etymology forum…


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