Origin of the Wessel Name

Origin of the Wessel Name

Prof. Brechenmacher was asked, as an expert, to document the origin of the Wessel name and following is his report:

I. The Historical Development of the Name

The clan name “Wessel”, which originates from, and is widely spread in, the northern part of Germany, is the diminutive form or pet name of the German name for men, “Warinhari”. Later it was changed to Wernher and then to Werner, as currently used.

In the sixth century, amidst the rush of the migration of nations, the full name “Warinhari” first appears in the German vocabulary of names. It consists of the basic “Warin” (to resist, to defend oneself) and the very old “Hari” (which means “army”). Life of that time was already expressing to the newborn, the wishes and expectations of the parents that their offspring may stand his ground in coming fights and struggles. The common translation of the name (as the one, who defends himself in fight) is absurd, for the Germans never meant to attach purposely any particular meaning to their full names. Each name was simply formed, (as it was already customary in the Indogermanic era), by the old traditional name of the father’s clan, to which the traditional name of the mother’s clan was added. Thus a name given ceremoniously to an infant, merely indicates a new kinship of clans, caused by the marriage of its parents.

The full name was used mostly for ceremonies (as, for instance, signing of documents), but in daily life there was always a diminutive form and the pet name had to be short, clear and impressive. All traditional old names had short forms, the procedure being very much the same now. For instance, we use:

John, Jahn or Hans for Johannes;

Nickel, Klaus, Clas for Nikolaus;

Else, Lisa or Bethe for Elisabeth.

From the various short forms of Warinhare/Werner derived Wetzel or Wessel. Wetzel is more common in the central and northern part of Germany. Wessel is more used in Lower Germany (especially in the northern part of it). From the abundance of the documentary evidence the following names are given as examples:

1285 Wezelo de Dederikeshagen - a Pomeranian;

1395 Wesselus Gebbing from Cologne;

1413 Wesselus de Kloppenbroich from the Rhine;

1416 Wesselus de Brylon from Brilon, Rhine;

1427 Wessulus Messelink from Münster, Westphalia;

1430 Wessel Calker from the Diocese of Cologne;

1437 Wesselus Heitvelt from Xanten on the lower Rhine;

1562 Wessel Hasenkamp from Bochum, citizen of Dortmund, etc.

Any doubts arising from whether Wessel is really identical with Wernher, can be proven by the following:

1270 Wessel with a mop of hair, citizen of Stralsund = 1306 Wernerus com pugno.

During the Middle Ages the first name was often used as a family name. This also happened in the case of Wessel which gradually changed into a family name during the 12th & 13th centuries. The procedure was the following: families, in which the name Wernher/Wessel was traditional, began to use it also as a middle name. Although at the beginning it could be easily dropped off or changed as such, if desired, it is nevertheless the origin of our family name of today. The gradual development of the aforesaid can be easily traced in various documents. There is, for example, in 1416 a student in Cologne from Brilon, who is first registered as Wesselus de Brilon, but the very next year he appears as Wessel Wessels de Brilon. This form of writing indicates clearly that his father’s name was Wessel, too. In this case “Wessels” is merely used as a descriptive form only and can be omitted, if desired. But how fast such forms, which indicate the family descent, are adopted, is seen in the case of Hinrich Hinrici Wesseli, who was matriculated in Cologne in 1431 and who is doubtlessly the son of Hinrich Wessel. Further evidence of the above is obvious from the following documents in which the patronymic form “Wesseli” is merely a link between the first and the family name.

II. Documentary Evidence

1379 Hinricus Wessels, citizen of Greifswald: (see Nüske, Greifswalder Personal Names, p.32);

1406 Tilomannus Wesseli from Sieberg, Rhine matriculated in Erfurt (Register Roll of Erfurt I, p.78);

1410 Hinrich Wessel from Brilon, Westphalia, matriculated in Cologne (Register Roll of Cologne, p.118);

1418 Henning Wessel from Plaue, Brandenburg, matriculated in Leipzig (Register Roll III of Leipzig, p.938);

1431 Hinrich Hinricus Wesseli from Brilon, matriculated in Cologne (Cologne Register Roll, p.261) (obviously the son of the one named 1410);

1440 Frederick Wesseli form Groningen, Netherlands, studied in Cologne (Cologne Register Roll, p.319);

1464 Johann Wesseli from Elverich, Mörs, Rhine, attends university of Erfurt (Erfurt Register Roll I, p.307);

1559 Theodor Wessel from Büderich, South, matriculated in Heidelberg (Heidelberg Register Roll II. p.17, 546);

1564 Heinrich Wessel (spelled Weßling),preacher in Weganstedt, Saxony (Roland XII, p.170);

1568 Paul Wessel, nail maker in Stolp, Pomerania; (see Schuppius, Stolp personal names, p.62);

1569 Cyriak Weßelius from Erfurt, attended the university there (Erfurt Register Roll II, p.422);

1581 Kaspar Wessel, citizen of Stolp (see Schuppius, Stopl Personal Names, p.62);

1589 Bernt Wessel, Councilor of Braunschweig (see Spiess, Braunschweig Town Register, p.191);

1596 Nikolaus Wessel from Stralsund, studied in Erfurt; (Erfurt Register Roll I, p.504);

1600 Hermann Wessel from Friesland, studied in Heidelberg, (Heidelberg Register Roll II, p.207);

1610 Martin Wessel from Bretten, Baden, matriculated in Heidelberg (Heidelberg Register Roll II, p.252);

1610 Christian Wessel from Thorn, studied in Leipzig (Leipzig Register Roll I, p.504);

1614 Elsa Wessel, citizen of Münster, Westphalia; (Münster Public Register #2529):

1615 Johann Wesselius from Kassel, studied in Marburg (Marburg Register Roll, p.174);

1615 Jürgen Wessel, Councilor of Braunschweig (see Spiess, Braunschweig Town Register, p.191);

1619 Johann Weßell from Hoetmar, Warendorf, citizen of Münster (Münster Public Register #2957, 3050) (and others by the name of Wessel).

1623 Elias Weßel from Bunzlau, Silesia, attends the Erfurt University (Register Roll I, p.504);

1663 Jürgen Wessel, Baker and Town-Councillor in Braunschweig (see Spiess, Braunschweig Town Register, p.191) (he is obviously the son of Jürgen Wessel, 1615) etc.

III. Review of the Geographical Occurrence of the Name Wessel

Vienna 1933 - 6, Mannheim 1929 - 1, Nürnberg 1929 - 3,

Saarbrücken 1929 - 2, Frankfurt, M 1929 -5, Offenbach, M 1930 - 1,

Kassel 1933 - 4, Bonn 1930 - 6, Cologne 1932 - 65,

Essen, Ruhr 1929 - 20, Mülheim, Ruhr 1929 - 7, Bochum 1929 - 20,

Herne 1929 - 28, Recklinghausen 1928 -5, Duisburg 1935 - 17,

Hamborn 1935 - 2, Solingen 1929 - 1, Düsseldorf 1929 - 26,

Dortmund 1929 - 37, Barmen 1932 - 18, Elberfeld 1932 - 8,

Hagen, Westphalia 1929 - 4, Aachen 1929 - 2, Stettin 1934 -10,

Münster, i. W. 1929 -25, Krefeld 1929 - 6, Bielefeld 1929 - 32,

Osnabrück 1929 - 40, Paderborn 1929 - 12, Göttingen 1938 - 1,

Hannover 1932 - 54, Braunschweig 1929 - 21, Detmold 1929 - 7,

Dessau 1929 - 5, Weimar 1929 - 4, Eisenach 1929 - 4,

Jena 1929 - 2, Erfurt 1929 - 8, Chemnitz 1929 - 4,

Leipzig 1929 - 13, Dresden 1932 - 2, Plauen 1929 - 6,

Breslau 1929 - 3, Gorlitz 1933 - 1, Halle, Saale 1929 - 5,

Magdeburg 1934 - 5, Berlin 1933 - 105, Bremen 1929 - 62,

Harburg 1929 - 10, Hamburg 1929 - 82, Lübeck 1928 - 15,

Rostock 1929 - 6, Stralsund 1933 - 17,

Danzig 1929 - 51, Elbing 1929 - 1,

Königsberg, East Prussia 1929 - 20.

Moreover this name occurs very frequently in Holland, Scandinavia, the United States and South Africa.

The spelling of our family name is various: Weßel, Weßell, Wesel, Wessel, Weshel.

Wilhelm Wessel (XIII,9) explains this in the following way:

The different spellings of our family name derive mainly from the way the double s (ss) is used, which was introduced by the authorities at the beginning of the 18th century. For instance, today ck is used instead of double k (kk) and tz instead of double z (zz). Thus from 1750 the authorities used instead of a double soft s (ss) a short and a long form of the s. Instead of a sharp s, however, they used first a long and then a short s. In this way the double soft (ss) was distinguished from the sharp ß. Occasionally, however, our name was mis-spelled either in the parsonage registers or by the bearers of the name themselves. They began to use a sharp s although they meant to write a double soft s (ss). Later generations therefore (when writing with Roman letters) used the ß. Some of them mixed up the long Roman s with the German h (both letters are very similar) and erroneously started to spell our family name as Wehsel or Weshel. The only correct spelling of our family name is, however, Wessel, as was used even before 1750.

The form “Wessels” originates from parish registers. These were primarily registers of baptism - the date of birth was seldom entered and often omitted. Thus it was, for example, registered on 20 July 1760 that the miller Christian Wessel’s son, Christian Friedrich was baptized. Here the form “Wessels” is merely the genitive case of the basic Wessel. Nowadays, this is not too much regarded, for it has been decided to stick strictly to the spelling in the parish registers.

WESSEL FAMILY CHRONICLE, Beth Wessel Marshall, 2006, Name Wessel